I am just fresh back from dropping off my two youngest children to their first day of school.
One's starting middle school
(in our tiny little middle school pod of our PreK-8th school-I have a funny story, but will tell it later).
One's starting Kindergarten. All day Kindergarten.
He told me he doesn't need me to come meet him at lunch today.
Insert my tears hear.
His teacher had play-doh set up in each child's little table area. She asked the children to make play-doh snakes and trace the letters with the snakes on a little laminated place mat she had at each child's spot.
He had yellow play-doh.
The empty seat next to him had red play-doh.
His favorite color is red.
I asked him if he would like me to swap his yellow for the red.
Using his little wise eyes to infer so much more than just his words, this is what he said:
"Mom, I'm in kindergarten now."
He doesn't always have to have his favorite color.
Again, tears.
One child in Kindergarten.
One child in Middle School (which really isn't like a real middle school at all)
One child in the midst of High School.
One child in her first year of College.
I believe that I am officially not a mommy anymore.
There are no little, little children in our home.
I don't mourn that.
I think I am mourning the end of my mommy era.
I've done my mommy job (I believe pretty well).
It's time for me to move on to full on mom.
Tears drying up.
Which is probably going to be a little overwhelming for the two teenage young ladies who are still asleep in their beds at this very moment. (miss h is home for a week)
Because now I can focus my momness on them.
Insert evil laugh.
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Ok, now the funny story.
Our school is really little. The middle school pod consists of a bunch (maybe 10 at the most) classrooms around a commons area. There is one math teacher for all the grades, one English teacher for all the grades, etc.
After I had dropped off little mr. j, I walked down to check on little mr. b (whose name I am going to have to change because he is almost as tall as me now and his feet are bigger than mine by almost two sizes).
The middle schoolers were already in their classrooms, so I didn't get to see him one last time this morning- but, I did see & hear two boys in his grade who were obviously late and walking through the commons.
"Oh, man I don't know where Mrs. _____'s class is."
"Dude, I think it's over there."
"Man, I'm never going to find my way around here."
At which point I busted up laughing very loudly on the inside.
It's a big room with all the classrooms surrounding the outside edges.
They are going to be very lost in three years when they move on the high school.
At that point a young lady from little mr. b's grade came out of one of the classrooms and told the boy,
"Hey, Mrs. _____'s called your name like three times. You better get in there."
I laughed and then I came home and cried and now I've typed this and feel kind of better so now I think I will go catch up on some laundry and probably cry a little bit more.
Bye.
