Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The Night before the First Day or What I wish I had said.

I wrote this two weeks ago, but the emotions were still so raw, I just couldn't bring myself to post it. I thought about it and knew that someday I would want to remember it all, especially the emotion of the night before...


Day 1 of Kindergarten

What I wish I had said - Kindergarten Orientation
Fill out the forms. Parent names, addresses, every phone number you can think of for an emergency. Allergies,  email addresses, volunteer forms… then… is there anything special I need to know about your child.
I drew a blank, but my mind raced. You gave me three lines and I think I need three thousand and the next two hours to tell you all that I want you to know.
You have my baby girl. The one we longed for, waited for, hoped and prayed for.  She is my special gift and the child that came out of my body in an emergency and has been creating her own emergencies (real or imaginary) ever since.  The day she was born, I knew she looked amazingly like my Nana. A woman whom I loved dearly and brought me immense comfort, happiness and love.

She is my child that can make me laugh without ever trying. She has a smile that can light up my darkest day and make my whole world worth living. Her eyes dance when she is excited and she gets excited about so many things. Please encourage that.  Her giggle is infectious and it comes from the heart.  Her heart is full of kindness and love. She is my child who although she physically left my body, she has never actually stopped touching it. Some days that was such a hassle, she was always under my feet, always exactly where I was or always laying on me. Now I realize how numbered those days were and what a gift I had been given.  My body aches with guilt over the days I went to work, when I should have been home with her and now I know I can never get those days back.
She is NOT her brother. She is more verbal at two than her brother has EVER been in his 11 years of life. If she doesn’t have something to say… poke her… she may be asleep. She talks about talking. She doesn’t need anyone else to have a conversation; she will have a really good two sided conversation all by herself.  She is not mechanical like her brother. She seemed to be born with the knowledge that the men in her life would always be there to fix everything she needed, so why bother to learn how to put anything together. I’d like to tell you that will change, but I don’t know realistically that the men in her life will ever let want for anything.
She is my expressive child. If her brother had emotions, there are days you may never know it. If she has an emotion, I will promise you will always know it, the second it happens. She is the one who fills our home with a roller coaster of emotion daily and sometimes hourly. OK sometimes they change minute to minute. Cole wakes up every morning happy. You know what you are going to get when he walks down the stairs.  It’s a crap shoot daily to see how she is going to wake up, but it’s always an adventure from the minute her feet hit the floor.
She has an imagination that could put many fiction writers to shame.  We often sit in amazement at the stories she can create in her mind and pass them off as completely believable.  (Call and ask first if she says she skipped breakfast) (The child NEVER skips breakfast)
She is my adventure child who is excited and embraces life. New place? She wants to go. Always! Even if it’s just a trip to see what the bathroom is like. New foods? Always! She has tried every food that she has EVER been offered and some she was not offered. There is not much that this one won’t eat. Compare that to my son who doesn’t eat anything that isn’t over processed and has no spice. She wants to experience everything with sight, sound, taste and smell. She wants to soak in new experiences with every piece of her body.
You have this year a chance to give her a lifelong excitement for learning. A chance to know that learning can be an exciting whole body experience. A chance for her to feel loved, respected, powerful, smart, beautiful and special.

I know from orientation that she sees in you that special spark and a love for learning that is infectious. She is excited for tomorrow. She knows in a very real way that this begins a whole new chapter in her life and she can barely sleep thinking about the possibilities.  Thank you for loving your job and loving these children.  Thank you for taking on the awesome responsibility and the great challenge of making this year one they will cherish forever.
I promise with all my heart that I will try not to be one of “those” moms who get TOO involved. I know it is important for her to make her own mistakes and learn her own way.  I want her to know it takes hard work to be successful and that the hard work must come from her efforts. It will mean so much more if she has earned her success.  Please help me if I step over the boundary and help too much. 

As I drop her off  and walk her down that long hallway, both of our hearts will be full of excitement and joy. Mine however will have just the smallest bit of sadness for the loss that is my baby girl and the knowledge that these years so by so very fast and they will be gone before I know it.  That soon I will be watching her walk down the long aisle of graduation and I will wish today could be frozen in time.