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There have been good times, and there have been bad, but there have, luckily, so much more good than bad.
There have been laughter, and tears, but luckily, so much more laughter.
You were my best friend when we got married, and now, we are a family.
I will always be grateful we choose each other.
Happy Anniversary, I love you. P.S. Yesterday, Doug brought me home a dozen Georgetown Cupcakes, only because yesterday was when they had my favorite flavor, carrot. I wish he had a blog, a little, because his story of arranging delivery to his office is hysterical. If that is not a reason to keep this man around, well, besides the good husband and father part, I don't know what is.
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While walking to school yesterday, Michael reached up for my hand, looked at me and smiled and said, "life is good." It was the happiest, calmest, and the most at peace I had felt in a really long time. When I was driving to work about 15 minutes later, "Someday" came on the radio. That was my theme when everything was going on last year. And I thought, for just one second, maybe, possibly, someday could be now. Could it be too much to hope for? He came home with 2 stickers on his shirt later that day. "I got one for sitting the nicest and one for walking the quietest in the hall, Mommy." He also told me everyone else in his class could read a whole book, and he was the only one who could not, so I'm not entirely sure I'm always getting a full story. As Michael was going to bed he looked at me and said, "Mommy, life is awesomely, awesomely good." I know it won't always be perfect. I know, someday soon, he will hate school and get in trouble again and there will be problems. But today, right now, I'm good with good.
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I spent all day yesterday pretending it was just any other Monday. I went to the gym. I took Doug's car to get inspected, you can't get any more Monday than anything run by the MVA. I ran errands. I did some writing. I bought Michael a pillow pet, on a lark, because he he had been asking for one and I wanted him to have something when he got home from a successful first day of Kindergarten.
I sat. I waited. I hoped and prayed that things were going ok, but I guess you never really know.
I was strangely calm all day. I expected to be a nervous wreck, but I wasn't. I'm in a very, "it is what it is" place. If he needs help, we will get it for him. If he doesn't, we won't. If there is a problem we will solve it. At this point, today, there is nothing I can do but wait.
At 2:45 I walked the 2 blocks to school, with Doug. Michael came out and immediately whined that he did not want to carry his backpack home. And then, he told me how much he loved his teacher. And Kindergarten. And he went to music class and got "four notes and when you get 10 notes" something magical happens and I still don't understand what. He demonstrated, on the sidewalk, how nicely he sat. He talked about playing Star Wars at recess and lunch and his binder. He was happy, excited, even. I've picked him up 2 years in a row at 3 different preschools and never saw this bubbly happy side of him.
I'm not sure if he was blowing smoke up my ass, or how good of a reporter a 5 year old boy is, but I can tell you this much, he is in love with his pillow pet. He has decided he needs another pillow pet to keep his first pillow pet company. And he named it, Sparkles. (Here is the back story on that.) Or, Royal Pillow Pet, depending on the day.
Today he has his first day of aftercare. He is going to go two times a week. I managed to switch my schedule around so I'll be able to pick him up most days, but need the flexibility of aftercare a few days a week. I'm hoping that goes just as well as yesterday. I am so lucky to have a job with that kind of flexibility.
On Saturday we have our last OT appointment. She just wanted to see him through to Kindergarten, but really, he could have been done at the beginning of the summer. That is the last thing we have from the madness of last year. It is over and done, I hope.
It is a New Year. I think it is time to let all the crap from last year go. And I think that includes the anger I feel towards the other school. Somewhere, somehow, I have to believe they thought they were doing the right thing. And somehow, they helped us. They brought up concerns that I didn't know existed. Michael would have never gone to OT if it wasn't for them. So for that, small thing, I am grateful. And not angry, anymore. Onward, and upward, and we move on.
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I think it won't surprise you to know that I'm not a scrap-booking kind of mom. Michael does not have a "traditional" baby book. He has a book of pictures of his first year, and that is it. I'm sad I didn't start this blog until he was 2 and a half, because this blog has served as his baby book of sorts. I don't know when he first rolled over, or got his first tooth. I don't know when he first walked, although I know it was a week before his first birthday. I don't know when he said his first word, although I know he dropped something on the floor and said "uh oh." I think I took a picture on his first day of preschool and posted it here. That day seems silly now. He was fine. He cried his second day. Today, his first day of Kindergarten, seems monumental, like the most important first day ever. I think because Kindergarten feels like the beginning of the end of childhood. There will be homework and tests and teachers who don't like him. Although sadly, we already experienced that. There will be A's and F's, and first loves and heartbreak. He will succeed and fail. Soar and Sink. Make the team and not. All without me. We went to "sneak peak" on Friday and found his desk, which he immediately sat down at, ready to learn. I laughed, and told him he could walk around the room today. He found his name on his cubby and the wall. He wrote his name on the sign in sheet. He found the bathroom, and I was thrilled, of all silly things, that it was right in his room. His teacher seems fine, she has been with the school for four years, and was somewhere else before that. But how much do you get a sense of someone in 20 minutes? He loved the scavenger hunt she had for the kids to do. And then we met the aftercare providers he will be with two days a week. And then we left. We spent the weekend doing lots of fun things as a family. Friday we went to the Building museum to see the Lego exhibit, something we had been talking about all summer. It was the last weekend it was there. Sunday we went to a baseball game with my playgroup. The kids we have been playing with since Michael was 6 weeks old. They all start Kindergarten today. Seemed fitting somehow to spend this day together. The day "before." Today, the day "after," my biggest fear is this will be last fall, a year later. I'm fine. People keep asking me if I'm going to cry, and I see no reason to cry. He has been in daycare since he was 5 months old and school since he was 3. But Kindergarten, as the lovely and eloquent Miss Brit put it, Kindergarten is not preschool. Kindergarten is for the big kids. Kindergarten is different. Kindergarten is where, we will finally know, if he is "fine." If he can make it. Or not. Maybe we will never really know. Maybe Kindergarten will be fine and first grade will not. Or High School. Or 40. Maybe it is all a serious of firsts. But this still feels like the most important one.
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