As I write this post, I am contemplating the browser tab for the Google search, "inspecting for lice" and wondering whether I should bookmark it or just leave it open. I had to do a search last night after a flurry of text messages and a phone call from friends we camped with over the weekend, and it made for a little baptism for mother and father heading into the heart of September. The flashlight inspection last night, the lack of even a single scratch of the scalp and a good hair wash tonight provide some reassurance that we are all clear.
We hope.
Today, it was a challenge to give the sense of significance that was appropriate for the occasion of starting school. An afternoon at a trampoline centre, an early bath and a bit of a speech from the old guy (that's me!) was part of the effort to make something of the day, but it is more of a transition for mom and dad than it is for him. New friends, new expectations and perhaps the threat of a little less play than has been the case, but it may be hard for him to identify significant differences between elementary school and day care. There will be lots of new kids and a lot of bigger ones too, but other than that there will be little to overwhelm the boy who so calmly transitioned into day care 30 pounds and 18 inches ago.
There are some questions about how we prepared him, but I try to tell myself that would be the case with any parent. He has an undeniable knack for math and sciences, a mild indifference to art, drawing, and... ahem... printing. I look ahead to the partnership with his teachers in the years ahead to help us set goals for him and I anticipate the challenges we will all face with some degree of excitement. I can picture him sitting down at the kitchen table - not necessarily tomorrow night - working on the things that he is struggling with where I can bring something to his growth, but I will dread -- just as I did during junior high school -- the Science Fairs that loom.
Apart from the scholastic aptitudes that are yet to be measured more precisely, there is the boy that we are sending off into the world. He is an affectionate boy who can be a goofball and enjoys the role of the clown. There are moments when he can withdraw when he is not getting his way, but there is a chance that he is more sensitive to the needs of others when he is in a big room. From day one we have been conscious of his size. I recall seeing other newborns when he was just two or three weeks old and gaping at my wife with the question, "Was he ever that small?" We are more than a little anxious about how the expectations and perceptions of him are altered because of his size and while we may have done him an advantage academically by waiting an extra year before sending him on to kindergarten, there may be greater expectations of him as he towers over the other kids in his class.
Ultimately though, he is a prodigious hugger and (if they allow that in school) I think he is the kind of kid that can help bring together a room of kids. We that thought and the insistence that we want, above all, for him to be a good, kind sensitive boy and man, we send him into the world.
