I have such a love/hate relationship with back-to-school shopping. I love it because there's just something so satisfying about buying that brand new box of Crayola crayons (or 3) and the pre-sharpened #2 pencils and the new raincoat because this year, he has to walk to the bus stop. But I hate it, too, because here we are again, my baby is not a baby and each year as I cheer him on towards manhood, he inevitably leaves his babyhood further and further behind.
Guys, sometimes I think I am not cut out for this parenting gig. Like, my heart is simply not flexible enough for all the stretching with pride and love and all the quick contracting with fear and sorrow that comes with mothering.
He's going into first grade this year. He weighs 50 pounds now and has lost two teeth and can cast his own fishing pole and bait his own hook but dear Lord, I bought him pants that snap this year and I hope he can handle it but I am just not sure. Snaps are hard and I still have to cry out to him, "Please, son, keep your pants on until you are in the bathroom!" to prevent him from running through public places with his britches at half-mast.
I only cried once while getting his school supplies this year. I ducked into the aisle with the protein powders, my chest tight and painful, knowing how absurd I must look, snuffling over the composition notebook with kittens on it that he picked out. My son, though, he's so used to his mom being absurd, and he's totally casual about it as he asks me if this is a good cry or a bad cry, bless him.
"Oh," I say, but it sounds more like I've been punched, because it hurts to breathe and I really do not want to completely blow what little cool I have, hidden in an aisle at Walmart. But I don't even know if it's a good cry or a bad cry.
Will his teacher be patient? Will she be kind? Will she be a she? Can Junior handle a he if she is a he? Will he be in class with that one kid who tried to pull the teeth out of his head last year? Will his teacher read his plan? Will she implement it? Will he be teased more this year? Will his teacher recognize his struggles, which are many, and meet them head-on, while also celebrating his strengths, which are also many?
And did I do enough this summer? We practiced what occupational therapist recommended, even as Junior threatened to "have Miss Bev arrested" but probably I didn't do it enough. It's never enough. We read out loud, a million books, but still, I didn't push him to sound words out, I'm not a good pusher, I should push more - is there still time left to push? Has he lost skills? Even typical children lose skills over the summer, but it takes him longer to regain them, and how do I even measure that, and he recognizes the words Texas, Atlantic, Pacific, Virginia, ocean, Italy, New Mexico, Lake Victoria, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska...but we still cannot handle the sight words. The sight words make him cry, and while I was excited that he was willing to write out river and septic pond and reservoir, doing his letters top-to-bottom as I reminded him, again and again, but now I think I should have buckled down more for the both of us and pushed the, them, they, fun, play and it, but I'm not good at pushing. Have I mentioned that?
This was the summer that his imagination seemed to take off, and his days were filled with the type of play I have never seen from him before. "I want to be a police officer!" and so he has been a police officer and I have spent untold hours looking for the police badge he loses every single day. "I want to be a kitty!" and so I have taped a thousand black paper triangles to a black headband. He has drawn people with features and fingers and that is huge. He painted and he did clay and he built rivers and drew maps and really, when you look at it that way, he learned a lot!
The knot in my chest eases some and I look at him and give myself a mental fist bump because non-traditional learning is still learning and we nailed that...right? Maybe? In a way?
But still, we struggle with reading and math skills and I don't think I struck the right balance between indulging him in the direction which his mind naturally and joyfully goes and those things which he needs to learn and I glare at the stupid labels on the stupid protein powders in the stupid aisle in the stupid store and I worry that I have failed him before school even starts because I am so stupid.
"Is it a good cry, or a bad cry?" he asks me, standing there with the gap in his bottom teeth and his sandy blonde hair like a bush around his head because he needs a haircut but we are putting it off until a few days before school starts because haircuts are hard. "Which one, Mom?" he says, with the mosquito bites on his skinny brown legs that are impossibly long - when I pick him up now, they dangle at absurd lengths but still, I insist, because I know the day is coming when I won't be able to hoist him onto my hip and I already mourn that, already cry about it, even as I cherish the young boy he is becoming, even as I say, with absolute truth and certainty, that each age is the best age and celebrate it, but because each age is the best age, I miss the age he was, too (except for three. I do not miss three. Three was awful).
But do you see what I mean? The material of my heart isn't stretchy enough for this constant swelling and contraction.
"It's a good cry," I finally eke out, but I don't know. It feels neither good or bad, but simply inevitable.
"It's just a good cry," my son announces, loudly and confidently, to Walmart at large. "My mom is just having a good cry."
I hugged him and kissed the top of his bushy head.
"I knew it was a good cry," he told me. "Because remember? I can read minds, and yours is easy."
And I laugh, because that is what he told me the other day, while "working" in my office with me.
"Mom," he said from my elbow, casually jigging the fat on my arm because kids always grab onto the least attractive part of you, right? "Mom, guess what? I can read minds."
"Oh yeah?" I said. "What am I thinking?"
"That's easy," he said, laughing. "Your mind is so easy for me to read!"
"Well?" I challenged him.
"Your mind just says, 'I love you, Bubby, I love you, Bubby, I love you, Bubby.'"
"You're right!" I said, completely delighted in his confidence.
"Yeah, only you're not supposed to call me Bubby anymore," he reminded me. "I'm Justin."
"Oh, well, my apologies, Justin." I said. "Can you read Daddy's mind?"
"Oh yeah," he said, shrugging casually. "His is easy, too. Same thing, only also 'fishing.'"
So he pretty much nailed that one, too.
The thing is, if I had pushed him harder on sight words and math facts, I'd be mourning the loss of play and the lack of brown on his face from time in the sun. I'd be worried that I burned him out before school even began. Even if I had nailed the absolute perfect balance between work and play, something else would crop up, both valid and absurd. That's the mom life, right? We are simultaneously completely justified and absolutely ridiculous.
I have so many hopes for him this year. I hope he has friends. I hope he learns, and I hope he plays. I hope his teacher is kind and patient, and in turn, I hope he is kind and patient, as well. I hope he remembers to keep his pants on until he gets inside the restroom and I hope he loses no more than 3 lunchboxes and returns all his library books this year.
And most of all, I hope he keeps that confidence, that all the time, every day, his daddy and I are thinking about how much we love him.
No comments:
Post a Comment