And So It Begins

Dear Babyman,

Last week I dropped you off for your first day of Pre-K.  For the second time in your short life, you will attend school five days a week; this time, however, it’s for good.  There will be no chance in the years to come for us to say, “You know?  Five days is a lot for a little man.  How can we scale it back?”  After Pre-K comes Kindergarten comes Grade 1, and that’s real school, man.

So on Monday I dropped you off, new lunchbox in hand (Cars 2), new shirt on your back (Toy Story), and you ventured into that big room with the big kids and the tall cubbies, and you hung your sweatshirt on its hook and went off to explore new territory, and you barely noticed as I kissed your white-blond hair and slipped out the door, as we have all been taught to do (drawing out the goodbye only makes it harder, and all that).

I know the school is amazing, I know the teachers are wonderful.  Yet I am sort of sad inside.  I missed you on Tuesday, our Tuesday, and it hurt me a little bit that morning when I had to tell you that no, there would be no movie while Babygirl naps, no walk to the library, no surprise ice cream on the way home, because you go to school every day now.  You didn’t appreciate that news either, and at your second drop-off you were a little quieter, a little more sullen.

You are so sensitive, Babyman.  You are too young to understand, perhaps, but you know nonetheless: something has ended.

I don’t know when it happened.  Probably because it didn’t happen all at once; it was gradual, a constant transformation that occurred right before my eyes over many months, so slowly that I didn’t notice until it was almost complete.  You are a boy now, Babyman.  You are no longer a baby, well beyond a toddler.  You are in command of your feet, you have language, you make your own friends and form your own opinions, you are learning to problem-solve.  You are tall.  And sassy.  And brave in the face of light sabers and motorcycles, things that once made you cling to me.

You are old enough now that we are bound — if we want you to be successful in life, and we do — to force you to cope on your own once in a while.  That’s why I left you crying at drop-off on Thursday, with a cheerful wave and a goodbye, even though secretly you broke my heart.  Bad habits can be hard to break, and if I am going to drop you of every weekday, I can’t be morose about it.

You don’t know that I called the center director later to check on you, that I asked at pick-up if you’d been okay.  You don’t know that I never for one minute stop wondering how you’re doing, hoping you’re happy and having fun.  I tell you that I love you all the time, that I think about you when we’re apart, but I’m not sure how much you know it yet.  You are still exploring this word, “love,” and its implications.  It’s just a word, and such a short one at that, so few letters for so much meaning: how can it possibly hold all the ways we feel about each other?

It is because I love you, to the moon and back, to infinity and beyond, with a visceral intensity that surprises even me sometimes, that I have to let you start on this adventure.  This has not been the easiest of weeks, but in a month, in a year from now…just you wait, Babyman!  This is going to be great.  When you have learned the new routines, when you have explored every nook of the classroom, when you have mined the senses of humor of your new teachers, when I have finally figured out what you mean when you insist I need to pack a “cup like the other kids” in your lunchbox — in short, when we get the hang of this Pre-K business — you are going to love it.

And you will grow in ways you can’t imagine.  In ways I can’t imagine.  You will keep surprising us.  Your boyhood is just beginning, Babyman.  Get ready.

And know that I love you.

Mommy