I should be happy right? I mean, this is the day all parents look forward to. No pitter patter of little feet under you while you're trying to clean the house. No squeaky voices demanding something to eat, something to drink, something...anything to take your attention away from whatever it is you are trying to do so they can have your undivided attention. Yes, I should be savouring the moment I hear the school bus squeal to a stop and watch as the Power Ranger and Tinkerbelle backpacks disappear behind the closing school bus doors. I should, but I just can't.
I was up until 5am this morning. Not because I had to work. No, I got off early to be able to get a good nights sleep. Go figure. I am now a mother of a highschool child. It didn't take long for her to take me back to a time when I entered highschool myself. The jitters, the upset stomach, the nerves of the first day all caught up with her. I did my best to prepare her for the transition. The past week we spent two days at the school travelling from class to class, checking out the gym, the library, the cafeteria and testing the lock combination for her locker about one hundred times. The routine was set and I know it did give her some ease. Until last night at about 11pm when she felt sick.
I remembered that feeling, she is so alike her mother. Worrying about how to wear her hair, if she will know anyone in her classes, who to hang with at lunch. She even called her girlfriends to ask if anyone was using the same type binders I had bought her! We parents may call it trivial but I know to her it is the difference between eating in the cafeteria with all the cool kids or packing a brown bag lunch to eat underneath the back stairwell. My heart hurt for her because I knew there was nothing I could do to comfort her. Like me, she does not accept change well and the fear of the unknown can seem overwhelming.
I wanted to drive her in this morning. I knew it wasn't an option she would consider but I put the offer out there anyways. I am the mommy, she is my baby. I just wanted to hold her hand, walk her from class to class and sit with her at lunch so she didn't feel alone. No matter how big and tough our teens pretend to be, they are still kids and the world can be a big scary place for them to be....and a big scary place for us to send them.
I had to make the trip to all three schools today to let the principals know about our Disney vacation next week. Sure, I could have made phone calls but being the mom that I am I had to go check things out on the first day. If I didn't, I would have missed the grade 11 "kid" in the front office registering for classes who was riddled in tatts, his front bangs draped across his forehead and over his left eye which he annoyingly fiddled with the entire 10 minutes it took him to register. I would have also missed the group of teens handing out on the sidewalk, couples arm in arm kissing, smoking and cursing. To think when I was that age it looked so cool. Cute highschool girls in their much-too-short uniform skirts talking like truckers as a cloud of smoke circles around them. And I had to drive away, leaving my daughter to a whole new world. It is in the next four years she spends here that she will grow into a young woman and I cannot be there to protect her. It is so hard to let her go.
I was glad I made her school my first stop. Walking into the smaller elementary schools I felt more at ease. Smaller hallways, locks on the entrance doors and teachers roaming the hallways being fully aware of me as I walked up to the office door. My kids are safe here. They are led by their teachers to the gym, the library and the playground. I may not be there to hold their hand but atleast someone is. I caught a glimpse of my five year old as her class was walking away in the opposite direction. She did not see me, but I got to see that she was happy walking alongside her best friend. She is okay, so I am okay. I will hold on to that feeling for today as I anxiously await my teen whose bus will be pulling up any minute. I hope to see a smile as she runs up the driveway to tell me of all the things that went good for her today. I can only hope.
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