Someone's got the Pre-Kindergarten Jitters!

Alas, the day we have long been waiting for, dreading, and over-discussing is finally upon us: tomorrow morning, I send my baby boy off to kindergarten.

I’m a practical person.  I know when it is reasonable and when it is not reasonable to be anxious about things.  I know the difference between a REAL problem and what is just a PERCEIVED problem.

And then I had children.

My emotional instability on the last day of Toby’s daycare took me by surprise, but I had ALWAYS thought that I would greet the first day of Kindergarten with a LOT more rationality and a lot LESS emotion than most other parents.   Once again, I prove myself wrong.

Here’s what I DON’T have to worry about:

Toby is fully potty trained

Here’s what I have been losing sleep over for the past few weeks:

Who his teacher is and what he/she will be like

How he is going to get his lunch bag opened

How he is going to handle the 1.5-hour bus ride home (!!!)

How he is going to do at drop off that first day

How I am going to do at drop off that first day

Whether he is going to make any friends

Whether he is going to make too many friends and not listen to the teacher

Whether he is going to eat his Cars Gummy Treats before any of the healthy stuff I’ve packed for him

How tired and cranky he is going to be after a full day of learning

Whether I can ever do anything fun with him ever again on a weekday…

The list goes on.

Toby, on the other hand, has no IDEA how significant an event this is.   He has not asked a single question and his only concern is whether or not he’s going to remember all of the “rules on the bus”. Yesterday, after offhandedly announcing that he only had ONE MORE SLEEP until Kindergarten I asked him how he felt about it.

“Oh, fine” he said as if I’d asked him if he’d rather have spaghetti or pizza for dinner.

I probed a little deeper,

“How does GOCHAR feel about school, Toby?  Is Gochar excited too or is he a bit nervous?”

Toby thought about this for a while as he pensively chewed his raisin bran.

After a few moments he shook his head conclusively, “No, Gochar isn’t nervous. He’s just excited.”

So I’m all-alone here on the nervous-bus on the night before kindergarten.  But I have reached the stage of acceptance.  I know tomorrow is inevitable; I have to just let whatever happens come my way.  Maybe this time tomorrow night I will have a lot less to worry about at night?  Hopefully???!

Tonight, as I snuggled my little boy to sleep he asked me to read him the Dr Seuss book “Oh the Places You Will GO”.  I hadn’t read this book since a family friend gave it to me after getting accepted to medical school.  It is TRULY ironic that he asked me to read it to him tonight.

As I read it I had one of those clairvoyant moments as parents.  Those moments in time you consciously watch yourself live through knowing full well you will think back upon them for years and years to come.  Moments you cherish so much they almost make you cry as they unfold before you.

The book is, perhaps, more suitable to a grade 8 student or a high school graduate, but as I read it to him tonight I realized that this is likely the last time I will be able to lie in bed with him and snuggle him to sleep the night before such a big event.  (I HIGHLY doubt that the 18-year-old version of Toby will let me lie with him and play with his hair while I read him “Oh the Places You will Go” before his first day of University.)

And so I poured my heart into it and read it to him, and to myself, and to every future version of Toby as he faces life’s biggest moments.

Toby:

  One day you may come upon this blog and read it, and it may be the only way you will know what I said to you the night before I let you out into the real world of school, and bullies, and lunch boxes, and school bus rides.  It may have come from Dr Seuss but it also came from my heart.

“Congratulations!  Today is your day.  You’re off to Great Places!  You’re off and away!  And will you succeed?  Yes, yes you will 98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.  Kid, you’ll move mountains!  Today is your day.  Your mountain is waiting…so…get on your way.”

Sometimes letting your children go is the hardest thing we have to do as parents.  But, as I will likely realize over the next few weeks, it is also one of the most important.

Good luck tomorrow to all of Toby’s 4-year-old friends and buddies…and all you parents, too!  I send you off tomorrow with pride, love and hope, Toby-Bear.  Go move mountains…