finding zen in the zany
My latest piece in Medium’s Human Parts is about finding a safe harbor in elementary school and watching my son grow up.
Now 12, my son is a more complex interpretation of the boy he once was. Less toothy grin, more cautious smirk. Less bounce, more swagger. Less dependence, more free agency. Like the changing clouds, he’s prone to shape-shift at a moment’s notice.
Dear Kindergarten Teacher,
It’s finally here, the day you’ve been prepping for all summer. Despite the common misconception that teachers close their door in June and skip off to the beach until the day before school begins in August, I know the truth, because I’ve lived it. I was a kindergarten teacher.
I know the painstaking effort you’ve made to prepare your classroom and write my child’s name in a million different places to make him feel welcome. I know the hours spent ensuring pencils are sharpened, Crayola markers all have fresh ink, and white glue is not clogged (a magical skill uniquely possessed by teachers). I know the thoughts in your head as you survey the kids walking through the door today – some clinging to their parent’s legs, some diving right into Legos and books you so carefully set out on shelves for them to find. A constant observer, you’re memorizing faces, learning names, and matching parent to child so you may greet and dismiss them to their rightful guardian for the next 180 days.
When you ring the bell to start the day, you’re already taking them in. You notice who cleans up quickly to join you crisscrossed on the carpet, who worries about saving their block creation to finish later, and which child, with eyes averted, discretely wipes tears on their sleeve after reluctantly withdrawing from a lengthy goodbye hug – to embark on their first day of elementary school, here, in your care. You respond to each need with kind smiles, special corner shelves for half-built towers, and kleenexes tucked in your pocket.
When you teach kindergarten, you must be prepared for anything.
Still, no matter how many times you’ve done this, the first day of school is a butterflies-in-the-stomach inducing day of firsts – for you, for your students, and for their parents. (I am no less susceptible to being overcome with emotion, despite years of standing in your shoes.) Maybe because I taught kindergarten, I understand it’s a year of transformation and learning like no other.
These students in your classroom, some of them only just beginning to recognize letters and sounds, will learn to read. These little bodies, barely able to fasten shoes and zip up jackets, will leave here stringing letters together on a page that we can actually decipher. (Sometimes even with correct punctuation.!?) These little people who’ve been balancing between toddler and elementary schooler for the past few years are now today making the plunge into the Big Kid Pool. (Though to be honest their giant backpacks and brand new shoes make them look more like well-dressed turtles than Big Kids.)
For us, their parents, today is a day of mixed emotions. If you see hesitation in our eyes when we introduce ourselves, or we respond to your cheerful, “Nice to meet you,” with a nonsensical “Fine, how are you?” please trust that our distractedness has nothing to do with you. You are lovely. It truly isn’t you; it’s us.
For some, it’s our first kindergarten drop off, and we’re overcome with the massive realization that our oldest is taking one step further away from the baby once strapped to our chest – in what our minds are sure was only a moment ago. If it’s not our first go at this, you’d assume we’d be skipping out the door, ready for a much needed kid-free morning and an uninterrupted, hot latte. You’d think we’d be undeterred by the First Day of Kindergarten hoopla. But we have ridden this ride before, and we are chock-full of knowing how fast it goes.
Don’t blink, they say. So we don’t.
We keep one eye fixed on our little person, our hearts, exploring the classroom, finding names on a cubby you so lovingly prepared just for them, hovering near would-be friends unsure of how to join in. We appear aloof, and at times tearful, because we’re consumed with taking in all the firsts – and lasts – all at once.
Whether this is our first, only, or last baby to walk through your door, we’ve spent years preparing for this moment. Just as these children filling up your carefully laid out classroom are unique, our efforts look distinctly different on each of them. For some, just getting shoes on the right feet is an accomplishment worth celebrating, while others tie laces and fasten complicated buckles without a second thought. With love and encouragement, some of our kids have mastered drawing elaborate, colorful pictures of beaches and families, complete with hair and accessories. Others painstakingly eek out stick figures on an otherwise stark white page.
Regardless of the outcome, our goal has been the same; we’ve poured love into these little bodies since the day they became ours. We’ve been celebrating successes, supporting efforts, and soothing failed attempts like crazy these past years – in preparation for this very day – the one where our once-babies dip their toes into elementary school and become kindergarteners.
We’re acutely aware that these kids of ours will shed first wiggly teeth, cast aside training wheels, soar across monkey bars, and dive into the deep end of pools, triumphantly resurfacing to search for our approving cheers, before this year is finished. And now, they’ll also look to you – their first elementary school teacher – after first words are written, first spiny-backed dinosaurs are drawn, and first future best friends sit next to them at story time. Today you are joining us on this journey, the one where our kids grow another year older under our noses. The one where we let them go just a little bit more than we ever have before.
Welcome, we’ve been waiting to meet you. Thanks for your understanding as we linger a bit too long at the classroom door, watching our child find their spot on the rug and their place in this new world you’ve created for them. We just need a minute to take it all in.
It’s not you; it’s us. We’re trying not to blink.
Sincerely,
The Parent of a Kindergartener
I spent the better part of today making a cake for my 4-year-old’s birthday. Not just a one pan and frosting kind of cake. Nope. A “rainbow cake” which, you guessed it – includes EVERY color of the rainbow.
I divided batter into six mixing bowls and carefully blended each into a colorful arch of the rainbow; with the enthusiastic help of a PJ-clad 4-year-old sous chef. (I’m not gonna lie, he isn’t the cleanest of assistants, so calling it “help” is a stretch.)
This project requires A LOT of bowls, and six layers mean six pans. (Really, three pans twice – because who has six round pans?) However you add it up, a lot of mess and clean up are involved in This. One. Cake.
In many ways, it’s crazy-making considering how easily I could pick up some cupcakes or cookies; which would be so totally appropriate for a 4-year-old’s birthday – where, let’s face it – a bunch of keyed-up preschoolers will sit just long enough to shove maybe three bites of frosting into their mouths. Getting most of it on their face and cute party outfits, before they start running around the room and bouncing off walls.
So why do it?
a) I crave praise.
b) I’m a “Pinterest Mom” and this is another notch in my crafty, gingham apron strings.
c) I’m a masochist (and a martyr) who takes on insurmountable obligations and projects in excess.
These theories aren’t entirely baseless. At one point or another, I’ve been one, or the other, or all three – at once.
But not today.
Today, I’m a mom who feels so much is out of my control when it comes to the current task at hand: Raising my kids.
Every day is unpredictable. I’m kept on my toes a lot, and my balancing act leaves tons to be desired. Most days, I eek by with a C. (On good days a solid B.) I yell. I lose my patience. I have even, on occasion (Gasp!), resented my children.
I’ve wanted to disappear out the front door, leaving their always-in-need-of-something little bodies behind. Transforming into the Me of decades past; hopping into my green convertible and zipping off to get sangria and tapas with the man I was madly in love with – who, by the way, is the same man I’m married to – even though sometimes, sadly, I forget.
But I love those needy little monsters, so in lieu of convertibles and fruity wine I occasionally seek out closed-end tasks for sanity’s sake.
Like baking fancy birthday cakes.
Somewhere in this buttercream frosting and R-O-Y-G-B-I-V is another year of my kid’s life gone by, another year of me being a mom, and a million things that both did and didn’t go well.
Like the frosting on this cake, depending on where I stand, how the light hits, or the angle of my gaze – I can see it as perfect – or I can see all the flaws.
Just like parenting.
The amount of care taken in adding One More Candle to the cake is overwhelming.
Fevers, ER visits, X-rays, tears shed, tantrums thrown, knees skinned, pets lost (OK, they were tiny frogs, but the amount of sadness expressed rivaled me watching “E.T.,” so our dogs better live at least another 65 years!) All of this, and So. Many. Band-Aids.
But it’s also lovely.
Rainy-day-book-forts built, nose kisses given, lazy-morning banana pancakes made, kites flown, puddles stomped, ice cream licked, and fears conquered. The unbridled and euphoric laughter of childhood floating down hallways. Fresh pencil lines on doorjambs proclaiming a newer, taller version has replaced last year’s model.
So much life in a year.
The possibilities of how these little lives might shake out over time make my head spin with equal parts hope and fear.
Bookmarked in my mind is an image of my older son, exuberant when we made his rainbow cake, six years ago. Before I’d met the indifference of 10 – proof he’s in there somewhere – and that favoritecolorrainbow is genetic.
Today for a minute we all overlapped, in front of the round pans and the pre-heated oven, like déjà vu.
In this frenetic life that so easily pulls us all in a million different directions, I need to touch hands with these memories, as a reminder of the life I intended, before becoming so wildly distracted with the life I am actually living.
Parenting is hard. I don’t trust myself to keep it up as well as I want to, for as long as I need to. (If all goes as planned, there’s a long way to go.)
Maybe, by making this cake, I can do other things I already did right once. Maybe, if I thread pieces of the past into us as we move forward, somehow we’ll get through this growing up thing intact – even the frosty throes of adolescence, on the other side of closed bedroom doors, and loathsome glares.
Maybe these layers will remind us we are unconditional.
As a parent, it’s easy to remember the times we fall short. I need to remember the times I showed up, had patience, and dove in with my whole heart. The times I read the extra bedtime story, hugged a little longer, and played Candyland 17 times in a row. I need to remember the days I was the best version of me: making magic out of cake mix.
I don’t know what the future holds, so I’ll take stock of what is sure.
Another year is in the books.
This memory is mine to keep come what may.
And as we journey together toward One Candle Older, I’ll fold down the corner on this day to visit again. A time when mixing birthday batter into rainbows – and the joyful face of a little boy who has his whole life ahead of him – is all I need.
And for reasons maybe only I understand, right now, this cake is everything.
My 3-year old and I have this deal at bedtime—two stories on my lap, five minutes of cuddle time, and a big ‘double hug’ goodnight. Each time, as I flip the lights off after stories and make my way to his bed, I am stopped in my tracks. It’s always darker than black and I can’t see. Even though it happens every night, I am never any less surprised. Every time, I have to take a minute and let the ambient light filter in before I can navigate through the darkness to his bed, and snuggle in beside him. Once my eyes adjust.
Adjust. Adapt. Move forward. It’s in our DNA; we evolve. Our beds, once warm with same-sized bodies and newspapers strewn about on lazy, Sunday mornings are now filled with miniature, ever-wiggling versions of ourselves, tiny feet in our backs, alarm clocks that never give us enough time to meet the demands of our day-to-day, and exhausted partners desperate for sleep, who don’t kiss us goodnight anymore. We barely even remember where we started. Our eyes adjust.
Our tiny babies, once so miraculous and novel, who filled us with meaning as they smiled for the first time, just for us; become burdensome as we struggle for sleep and time to ourselves. They grow into bigger, saltier versions of themselves, challenging us at every turn, pushing us away and daring us to love them anyway. Instead of their cribs, we pick them up from school. Barely meeting our gaze—we know not to ask about their day. We hardly recall when they were once perched in bulky carseats, filling the air with non-stop-words. Our eyes adjust.
We get so busy living, we actually forget the moments that once shaped and defined us as parents. I don’t remember the last time I sat in a rocking chair with my shirt pulled up to my neck and sleepily nursed a child. Or the last time I zipped up footie pjs or snapped a onesie. I don’t remember the last time my oldest child held my hand or kissed me goodbye at school drop off. And I can’t remember the very last time I set him down and never picked him up again. Our eyes adjust.
New firsts crowd out the lasts so fast we don’t even have time to notice. Our lives fill up with milestones. Tiny, pudgy hands, are now lean, capable fingers; effortlessly playing piano keys and guitar chords. Clumsy toddler steps become swift and sure, as they steal home plate or kick the winning goal. Our laps, once filled with lift-the-flap bedtime books are instead dinnertime discussions of heroes and wizards who face complex moral dilemmas. Four protective stroller wheels transform into sturdy two-wheel bikes; shiny helmets and independence gleaming in the sunlight as we watch them ride away. As accomplishments pile up, trophies and schoolbooks replace finger-painted pictures and carefully constructed clay figures on bedroom shelves. Our eyes adjust.
If we’re lucky, the mundane takes over and we sail through the middle of life. Because darkness can strike unexpectedly, as my friends and I have seen all too well. Divorce, illness, saying goodbye too soon—to parents, friends, or God forbid, a child. In a blackout, the best you can do is stop, breathe, and wait for the ambient light to come. And it does, eventually. Me too, I’m here, I’ll wait, When you’re ready, I’ll listen. It seems insurmountable, but the darkness will lift. Our eyes will adjust.
We move forward. We move on. Some days we are so shiny and new, the future is bursting with promise. Other days we are caught off guard. Maybe it’s an old photo in the junk drawer, the look on someone’s face, a familiar smell, a memory that catches our breath, or the love-worn item we discover under the seat of our car—now forgotten and obsolete, but once full of context. Or it’s the stranger from Craigslist in our garage, thumbing through our kid’s old sleep sacks and checking the tread on tires of a worn down stroller, miles of memories, asking, “How much?” For a minute we lock eyes with them and envy where they are, looking ahead at what we’ve left behind. We close our eyes and soak it all in.
But when our eyes open, we are right where we belong; buttering the toast, feeding the dog, filling our car with gas, picking up way-too-big-and-sweaty bodies from baseball practice, or loading our old memories into someone else’s trunk in exchange for $60. We move on from the moments we are caught in the dark; stopped in our tracks. We wait. We breathe. We count. And before we know it, we can see again and move forward in the direction we were heading.
Across the dark bedroom floor, to the bed with the little, warm, squirmy, not-yet-grown-up body, waiting to wrap themselves around us. Once our eyes adjust.
This post was featured on Mamalode
