Ready Or Not...

Yesterday was our first day of Kindergarten.

How, when, who...

Our Mr. Man can not possibly be old enough for school. I'm not ready for this.

Of course he took it all in stride. Barely a moment of apprehension. Turns out I was making him nervous all week with the constant questions. "Are you excited?", "Are you ready?", "Can we practice your writing and reading again?"

Daaaaaaad! Can we stop now? Let's play something. I'll be fine.

But you...but, but...

I'm ready already.

And he was. We took a few packs of glue sticks for the class. It was the only thing I could remember from the 'needs' list. Mr. Man handed them to his new teacher and told her, "You can keep these. My dad said we have more for home." as he wandered off to find a tiny chair.

He sat between two other boys. On his right was the class crier. On the left...(I'm sure he's a nice kid, but his parents had shaved his head. Who shaves a 5 year olds head?)was the kid totally opposite from crier. Out going and excited.

Mr. Man looked at the crier, looked up at me with a look of "WTH?" and then to Buzz. Buzz looked at Mr. Man and said,"Hey, do you want to play with these blocks?

"Sure, that'd be great.

"Ya. We should be friends."

"Ok. Let's play."

And that was that. The pure simplicity of childhood. It was beautiful. Except for the crier. He just would not stop. I sort of felt bad, but you have to learn to face the world or those other kids will eat him alive. Kids can be brutal.

I was one the last parents to leave after drop off. I wanted to make sure everything was alright and check out the other kids. I wanted to check out the other parents and see how they handled it all.

Other people frighten me. That's all I gong to say for now. They frighten me.

The very worst part of watching my son grow up, is knowing that one day, that pure simplicity that can and should make childhood the most wonderful place in the world, will be gone. Eventually, he will forget those simple pleasures and be like most all of us. That I find painful and very sad. I hate that I even think about such things.

I should just let it all be and encourage him to be a kid, and enjoy all of those simple things, as best he can, for as long as he can. I will remember his childhood forever, even if he doesn't. And I have pictures.

It just pisses me off feeling like this. It totally justifies a lot of what my mother does. I can just hear her voice, " You just wait..."

I hate it when she's right.

Not, ready.