Karma

I taught kindergarten for seven years.  In those seven years I went through seven first days of school.  They were all pretty much the same – the stress and tension of getting through without losing anyone, while remembering that this one was allergic to chocolate milk, finding out whose parent decided at the last minute to switch the child from bus rider to car rider, and eventually falling into bed at 5PM totally exhausted.  In the frenzied blur of those memories, I always remembered mothers anxiously hovering over their child as they waited for the bell to ring, taking pictures, whispering last minute instructions and warnings.  I remember that many cried as if the child were leaving on a plane and never returning.  My head would shake in disbelief, and I would chuckle in derision at how ludicrous these mother-helicopters were.  The child was five years old, for Pete’s sake…what, do you think I’m going to lose your precious baby?  I know you only met me briefly at orientation, but I have a teaching certificate!  I know what I’m doing, and your child is no different from the two hundred or so other kindergarteners that I’ve taught.  Suck it up, lady…he’ll be fine!

Karma, however, has come full circle to bite me in the butt.  My firstborn, my sweet baboo, my precious Jared will be going to k-k-kindergarten in just a few short weeks.  I am tearing up even as I type this.  Forgive me now, baby boy, because I am going to cry such a river that you’re going to have to kayak to lunch.  You’re only five years old, for Pete’s sake.  Only five short years ago I was swaddling you tight and kissing your thick black hair that smelled so new.  I will only meet your teacher briefly at orientation.  So what if she has a teaching certificate?  Does that certify her to have common sense, to have compassion, and to get you to the right place at the end of the day?  You’re so different from all the other children she’s ever taught…you’re brilliant, funny, loving, and gifted in so many ways.  Will she recognize that your sense of humor is a gift, and that your sarcasm is your coping mechanism?  Will she recognize that you aren’t trying to mount a hostile takeover of her classroom and depose her, but that the majority of your life has been spent in a preschool being raised by your family of teachers?  Will she understand that you only wish to help her, and that you are more than qualified to take the class if she needs to make a quick trip to the restroom?

I can only hope and trust.  I will be waiting impatiently with all the other kindergarten mothers at 2:30 that first day, straining my eyes to see a familiar, chubby little face beaming at me.  He will make it through, and so will I.  Maybe.