Jasper started school. SCHOOL, you guys.
For two and a half hours a day. (Two mornings a week.)
Granted, he’s not sending me monthly postcards from his assigned oil rig- yet- but it’s hitting me oddly.
Not jubilantly- like some of you freewheeling parents out there. (How the heck do you do it? Not celebrate, I mean. How do you do make it through a school day without wondering who’s gonna play Hungry, Hungry Hippos with you? On whom do you blame the excessive glue stick usage?)
And I don’t mean weepily, either. (Although that one I get. Can, have, and will.)
No, the “odd” is in how time works.
I just had this guy. I just held him in my arms (along with a few I.V.s) and stared down at this bundle of BOY and felt all of the ways that my post-birth body was reeling- physically, mentally, emotionally, physiologically, hungrily- from having just had him. So yeah, the sense memories are alerting me to the fact that, indeed, I JUST had him.
But I’ve also had him forever. Literally, forever. Literally, long enough to not remember a time before five place settings and three carseats and one (daily) utterance of “Mama, I show you my peen-yis?” I do not recall a time before this.
Time, you jerk.
The morning of preschool (for J, that is- Suzy had already been to her afternoon session and Nora, old pro that she is, had been in school for so long that she’d already devolved into Ponytail Casual) Jasper was excited/concerned/Not Going/already in the car. As I was finishing everyone’s a.m. routine, I was startled by an exceptionally loud THUD against our kitchen window.
A tiny finch had launched itself against the glass so hard that it promptly died on the window ledge.
As you can imagine, I took in this scene extraordinarily well.
“ANOTHER BIRD IS BEING LAUNCHED PREMATURELY FROM THE NEST,” I privately, quietly conferred with P.J.
“IS THIS AN OMEN?”
“No,” P.J. patiently, quietly shook me back to reality. “It just means that our windows are too clean.”
Great, I thought. The one thing I managed to clean this week is causing death and destruction.
Somehow, the kids missed this teachable moment in nature and we carried on with our previously scheduled morning. Nora went to school. Susannah prepared for school (and a morning spent with JUST MOM). Jasper strapped on a backpack and murmured “Moms and Dads come right back” every eight seconds, a la Rain Man.
It went awesomely.
Until he realized, upon setting foot in the classroom, that “Moms and Dads come right back” meant “Moms and Dads leave the classroom, at least for a tiny portion of time.”
You know when someone cries so hard that they shudder and choke on their own breath for maybe an hour afterwards? (JASPER, you guys. Not me. Back off.)
So, we amended the plans. Friends came and got Suzy- sorry, Suzy- and I ended up staying in J’s classroom to “volunteer.” (I “volunteer” to be the one wiping my kid’s Ugly Cry tears from the rainbow meeting mat!)
“Sure sounds like Jasper’s not ready for preschool yet, Keely,” I hear you gently accuse.
Totally! That said, he’s going back this morning.
“Please come with me? …Please?”
“But this time goes so fast, he’s only little once,” you softly berate.
I KNOW, RIGHT? But the kid needs life skills. Not trade school-esque life skills (although with this house, that would be BOSS), but skills like the ability to briefly coexist outside of the realm of what Jasper hilariously/confusingly calls “Mommy/Daddy.” (I mean, I think he knows we’re two separate entities…?)
And I already know that I’m clinging extra hard to this kid because he’s perfect and Mama’s baby and if something makes him sad I’ll start smashing things like The Hulk and I’m already way too close to becoming Norman Bates’ Mom and I think we can agree that this one should be nipped in the bud, yeah?
Maybe I should keep that particular sentiment safely out of the ol’ baby book.
So even though I want to wrap this kid in a baby blanket and pretend mine are the only eyes he’ll ever search questioningly, that’s not how it’s supposed to be. And that’s okay. It’s good, really.
Oh my God, I miss my baby already.
Did I mention that his class is only for two and a half hours, two days a week?
Although let’s be honest, with one foot halfway outside the classroom for the majority of that time, it’ll be more like 15 minutes of alone time at a stretch.
Ahh.
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