Kyle starts Kindergarten on Tuesday.
I'm kind of a wreck about Kyle starting Kindergarten on Tuesday.
I know, this is the biggest parenting cliche there is. The weepy mom saying goodbye to her baby on his/her first day of Kindergarten. Forget that he's been in daycare since he was nine weeks old. Forget that we're absolutely privileged for the education he'll be getting, at a great school close to home. Forget that this is a universal parenting milestone. Kindergarten! I'm certainly not the first parent. (See all those Facebook photos of kids holding up adorable signs for proof.) (Of course Kyle will be holding up his own adorable sign on Tuesday.) (Even if they stopped being adorable years ago.) Even forget all that daycare tuition we'll be saving.
Forget all that because I'm a mess. How are we here? How is he old enough? How can I be sure he'll enjoy school or that his teacher will turn out to be the best person who has ever existed in the history of the entire world?
I've been obsessively searching for awesome lunch ideas and first day outfits and weekend activities for our very last pre-Kindergarten weekend because these are the things I can control. I'm even having the house cleaned on Monday--the day before school starts--so we can start the year, his first year, on a fresh, new foot.
Made even fresher by all those tears I'll have cried.
I cried at his Kindergarten Round-up this past April, crying on his first day of school is the surest thing that's ever been.
The other day Kyle said to me in the car that he was a little nervous because he didn't know any of the other kids' names (he's not going to school with a ton of kids he knows because his daycare--and most of his other friends--are in neighboring towns), and I told him that he'd definitely learn their names and that there was actually a time he didn't know any of his current best buddies' names.
He wasn't convinced.
So I told him the story of how I met Natalie, on the first day of school (even though it was the first day of sixth grade, and even though it might have been the second or third day of sixth grade, no one tell Kyle I stretched some details, alright?), and how I didn't know her name when I first met her.
"You didn't know Natty's name?!"
"I didn't! I rode the bus home and I asked if I could sit next to her, and then I asked her name."
"And she told you?"
"She did! And we've been friends ever since."
"Oh good, because now you know her name."
"I do, I do know her name, buds. All because of school."
He seemed a little better after that.
(I'm still a mess.)
(Wine on Monday night, yes?)
(And then again on Tuesday, 'round lunch?)