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| Spawnling and his buddy W. They've been friends since babyhood. Playdates, playgroup, preschool... They argue like an old couple. If I can get it on video someday I will. |
Spawnling is starting kindergarten on Friday.
In our province, kids go to school five full days a week when they hit the Big K. There is no slow integration unless you put them in daycare or preschool first. It's like one minute they're not in school and the next minute BLAMMO! they're walking apprehensively into the school yard with their chubby little arms hugging an oversized backpack as you watch, sad and sobbing.
Except when you're not.
I cried when Intrepid lugged his chiropractic nightmare of a school bag into the yard eleven years ago. I was even a little melancholy when Gutsy did the same half a decade ago. With Spawnling? Not so much. I had my moment when The Spawn said goodbye to his amazing preschool teachers in June. I cried in my car on the way to pick him up on that last day. I cried when he hugged them tight for the last time. I cried when they cried because he was crying. It was the end of an era. My littlest boy - my last little boy - was no longer such a little boy anymore. Heartbreaking.
Except it isn't, really.
A part of me feels like I should be much more upset than I am (which is not at all). Attachment Parent Maven wonders if I'm blocking some deeply buried volcano of emotion that's going to burst to the surface, leaving me sobbing into a head of lettuce on the floor at the grocery store. Anytime now. Wait for it. Here it comes.
Except it won't.
I've come to three conclusions lately:
1. I've been doing this parenting thing a long time. I've been a stay-at-home-mom with only minimal part-time interruptions since 1996. Let me do the math for you: That's almost sixteen years. SIXTEEN YEARS. That's longer than a good vehicle will last you these days. That's working your way up to senior management in most workplaces. That's about two-thirds of the way through a typical mortgage. That's how long it takes to become a plastic surgeon. That's a long fucking time.
2. I am so ready - so very, very ready - to do something else; something that involves being by myself or only around people who are legally responsible for themselves; something that doesn't involve negotiating hostile toy takeovers and noon-hour vegetable battles; something that allows me to eat my lunch in peace and drink a cup of coffee without it going cold on the counter. I'm ready. I'm excited. I. AM. READY.
3. The biggest conclusion - well, more of a revelation, really: It is totally and completely okay for me to be happy about this time in our lives.
It's okay for me to love my kids and also love my time away from them.
It's okay for me to for me to want to do something beyond parenting.
It's okay for me to grow and change as my children grow and change.
It's okay for me to believe that my kids can and will thrive in new situations. We've given them a solid foundation. I've nursed and nurtured, corrected and comforted, held and hugged each and every one of them. I can look back on that and feel like I did a good job.
I set out to do something that was important to me: I wanted to stay home with my kids until they were ready for school. I did that. It was hard sometimes. It made me cry, it made me cringe, it made me fight with my spouse about money, it made me want to run away and start a coffee plantation in South America with nothing but a donkey to look after.
But I did it. Um, the staying home bit, not the donkey thing... which actually sounds a lot more perverted when I call it "the donkey thing."
I met my goal. A huge decade-and-a-half goal. And I feel so good about that. I'm not sending the last little gremlin off to school with a heavy heart; I'm sending him with the knowledge that we can transition to this next stage of parent/child togetherness and still keep a great thing going.
I'm fucking awesome. I'm, like, the plastic surgeon of parenting.
My level of comfort and happiness cannot be overstated. It feels good to let myself feel good about this. We should celebrate the day Attachment Parent Maven finally welcomed Savvy Entrepreneur Maven into the family.
Cue the donkey.