The Coffin Maker's Wife: CONFESSIONS OF A KINDERGARTEN MOM...(AND APOLOGIES)

Well, so, Adam, I mean I survived the first week of REAL school, Kindergarten. It was not pretty. There was a lot of cooking and some wine, more cooking than wine (should have combined the two) but still it's been a while since I needed to do things to pass the time. First, an apology. I need to apologize to all the moms I mocked in my head, for posting all their sadness over their children going off to kindergarten. I pooh-poohed you all and thought I was better than you. Adam was excited, so I was excited. He's already been to preschool so, honestly what is the big deal? Well, as is so often the case, I realized that I am not above any one of you. In fact, I'm ~~maybe~~ worse because I thought I was better than you, stronger, sooooo much less emotional and sappy. But low and behold I got choked up walking him down the hall and it hit me how much of a step this is for him and me. Leaving him somewhere for a span of seven hours with people that I, at most, had spent about two minutes with. Who are these people? Are they nice? Will they be kind to him? What about the kids? Are they nice? Will he make friends? What if he gets lost? Who will he ask for help in a sea of strangers, in a building he's barely been in? What if someone makes fun of him? Will he cry? If he cries who will comfort him? Will anyone comfort him? What if he gets hurt? Who will call me? Will they know he's hurt? What is he learning? Does the teacher like kids? Does she like Adam? Do past students like her? Are we doing the right thing? Should we be homeschooling? Should we send him to private school even though we can't afford it? Honestly, how many questions can run through one's mind?

Now I will admit that since we lost Jacob I tend to work very hard NOT to physically cry and get emotional and for the most part I have got that down now. The months especially after losing him, the emotional and physical toll of a breakdown were incredibly high. One good, hard but needed cry could take days or weeks to recover from. The roller coaster of emotions was not a friend of mine and I quite hated the roller coaster because it was so far from what had been my normal state, pre-child loss. But still you press on because you have a life that existed before your baby died and that life still exists after, and so I just think I've become very good at managing my emotions...at least outwardly. What I manage to suppress in outward emotions however seeps out into an inner anxiety that probably surpasses what many experience daily. I think I've learned to manage covering that up pretty well though.

So, long story short, last week was hard. Adam fell the first day of school and was minorly hurt but enough to garner a story, which I must say is a HARD thing to get out of a kindergartner! One question about what happened that day might as well have been the hundredth question I'd asked, "Mom, I don't know! I can't remember." But what he did say is "Mom, she's not like my preschool teacher. She didn't ask if I was okay. She just said "get up." So, then my heart broke more. Who is this woman!? It is my fervent prayer that one day this will be something I am laughing about and despite a long week of unknown days and I'm pretty sure one morning he was lost and only made it to class by the kind help of a 3rd grade neighbor, that his teacher and I will be friends and I can share this with her and we will have a laugh together. I want him to love kindergarten and that is all. I want him to love it because he learns and has adults around him, other than his parents and family, that care and help him and adults he can trust as well. I think that is nice and important and sweet.

So after a long week, dissecting every moment I've met his teacher, every nugget of information Adam has unwillingly given me, researching private schools, agonizing over the possibility of giving up my small bit of free time to homeschooling our brood, God calmed my anxiety and, I think, answered my prayer this morning. We were running late, sort of. If Adam had not changed his mind and we had gone through the drop off line he would have been on time, but he changed his mind last minute that he wanted me to walk him inside so I dogged traffic and small sweet pedestrians to find the nearest spot to park and power walked him into the empty halls of the school knowing the bell had already rung. It has been a VERY long time since I felt tardy:) But as we walked to his hall we passed the assistant teacher for his room, a woman I've not really seen smile, and she gave us a huge smile, an unmistakable smile. A smile to calm a mama's heart and to top it off, as I watched him walk to his chair in his class, I caught his teacher's eye from the door and she too gave me a smile. Sigh. Relief. Hope. That is all I need. I am not sure if the rest of the week will be so reassuring but I'm basking in the hope that I had this morning as long as I can:)

So about the cooking...we successfully cooked six lasagnas, six turkey tetrazinnis and six loaves of banana nut bread. We threw in some chocolate chips for good measure:) What I've learned ~ I've learned that six is too many, my bowls are not that big and I ended up having to do everything twice and dirtied twice as many bowls which was obviously not the intention, but lessons learned and I have a lot of food to show for it! Disclaimer: There were children crying while these meals were being prepared, some helping, me yelling "don't touch that!" a lot, and my kitchen is just now recovering to the normal state of messiness it usually is. I've included a picture below of what my kitchen looks like post cooking so that you all don't think I'm some crazy fool who keeps a neat house while doing all this.

I said to Allie just now as we cut into our first loaf of freshly baked banana bread (which she helped me make, start to finish), "This is the best part of cooking!" Allie said, "No, this is the best part of eating!" That's right honey!

Here is to another week of excitement! Hope your week goes well too.

My sous chef at work! (notice the opened bag of Pirates Booty to the left...what I eat while cooking lasagna, lol)

Talk about attention to detail (she gets this precision from her daddy, mostly)...also explains the four hours it seemed to take to make the lasagnas!