I managed to keep things bright and cheery this morning even
though I’m sick (again), and didn’t sleep most of the night. This is not easy to do when you feel
like you can barely stand up.
Eli surprised me as we were getting ready to leave, yelling
into the other room, “See you later, Dad!
I go to cool now!” He stood
there clutching his red canvas tote the preschool provides to all the kids, and
truly looked excited to go.
This might go well, I thought to myself.
And it did, right up until we got to the door of the
classroom and Miss Ronda came out with a huge bottle of hand sanitizer and
wanted to squirt some of it in Eli’s hand. Apparently, this is not the way to say good morning to him
on the first day of school.
He immediately started fussing, hid behind my leg, then
clutched it. I could feel myself
starting to lose it, wondered how the hell I was going to get him into that
classroom so I could make my getaway and cry in the car.
I bent down and let Miss Ronda put sanitizer on my hand and
explained that it’s like lotion (we almost never use sanitizer). He started to cry and giggle at the
same time. Miss Ronda asked him
about his shirt, and ten seconds later he was holding out his hand letting her
squirt sanitizer into it (I’ll say I wasn’t pleased with this routine, but that
topic is for another day).
Next thing I knew she was whooshing him off through the
threshold of the classroom, not making eye contact with me (smart), and not
letting me say goodbye to him (really smart). I wandered down to the other door to the classroom. It was closed and has one of those
windows where you can see in, but the kids can’t see you on the other side.
I waited for about thirty seconds, didn’t see Eli, couldn’t
hear him crying/screaming, wanted to see Eli very badly just for peace of mind,
then decided I needed to get my ass in gear if I was going to make it to the
car without letting everyone see me cry.
I could see another mom ahead of me, making the same dash to
her car. I could also tell she was
bawling about halfway there and for some reason that comforted me.
The teachers left “goodie bags” in all the kid’s cubbies for
the moms. The “poem” attached to
the outside:
You bring to us your child so dear,
Not without a touch of fear.
You both might want to shed a tear.
We promise we will love them here.
We’ll teach them they are a special one.
We’ll teach them school is lots of fun.
We’ll teach them how to share and play.
We’ll teach them something new each day.
Relax, go home, feeling free,
To have yourself this cup of tea,
Within days, you will see,
School is where they want to be!
So I didn’t get past the first stanza without becoming a
blubbering mess. When I got in the
car I briefly felt like I was going to hyperventilate as the wall of questions
came crashing down: Was he
okay? Did he know I was coming
back? What if he got upset and
they couldn’t calm him down? Who
were those kids? Were they going
to be nice to him? Was he going to
be happy there? Was he going to
hate it? Was he going to hate me
for leaving him there? How could I
leave him there?
I couldn’t believe I had just… left him. Just like that. I took off, in a hurry. It went against every mothering instinct
in my body to leave him. I felt
horrible.
I know there are going to be so many more moments like
this. Moments where you have to
let go. Little by little by
little. Or, on some days, a
lot. Today was a lot for me.
When I came back to pick him up, the class was on the
playground and he was in the sandbox, surrounded by toys. He looked so happy. He was only mildly excited to see me
(this was a relief, actually). I
knew it meant he had been just fine.
In fact, I had to convince him to leave those cool new toys behind, had
to remind him that Dad and Sophie were excited to see him, couldn’t wait to
hear about his first day at school.
The rest of the day was a challenge. Every time I left the room he got
upset. He’s been super
clingy. This pulls on my heartstrings,
and I wonder how things will go next Monday when I drop him off again. I hope I will be stronger.
I know it will get easier, for both of us. Beyond that, all I can say is that it
was a big day, for all of us, and we did okay.