Earlier this week Gabriel also learned that that he, perhaps by no more than the thickness of a sock, has outgrown the height restriction of a shopping centre playground. There may be an attempt to sneak him in, but I won't be attempting that one. He may be more interested in the access he will gain on certain rides at the local amusement park to ease his anguish about his growth.
I am torn over the formality of the graduation yesterday. It was an opportunity to mark his imminent departure from daycare even though it is still about 2 1/2 months away and I am glad that the educators at the daycare had the opportunity to say goodbye in the manner that they did yesterday. It is probably all too easy to rush through this particular goodbye to the women who have had such a significant impact on Gabriel. I still foresee an informal good bye that will be quite heartfelt.
My issue is that there may be too many ceremonies and celebrations of this sort and that each rite of passage will get over formalized. A more mindful and conscious acknowledgement of those passages will be valued as well and I suspect there may be a risk of either celebrating small accomplishments on scale that risks blowing them out of proportion or bringing a formality to the occasion that does not seem appropriate. Yesterday's ceremony was sweet. The kids all sang a song about growing up and being ready for "big kids' school" so there was a sense of culmination about the event.
The more mindful recognition of those rites would be more appealing to me. There are countless other little achievements that a child goes through as they mark their growth and advancing independence and I would prefer that people be conscious enough of those steps to mark them in their own personal way that aligns with their values and interests. We will have plenty of those little moments and it may just be that the improvised moments that mark those rites will be more valuable and memorable than the formal occasions.
In my own case, waaaaay back in March 1975 I had my first communion on my own. My father, was heading off to sea with the Navy just before I was supposed to have my communion with my catechism class. Instead of marking it on a sun-kissed Sunday morning, I believe it was on a Thursday night during Holy Week. I don't recall if the priest made any special announcement to the congregation that night, but I do recall a woman who qualified as elderly to a certain 8-year-old (me!) giving me either a dime or a quarter after mass to congratulate me for it. I had the sense that she had always seen me in church and that the coin came as an unprompted acknowledgement of my communion rather than something prompted by words from the pulpit. After mass, my parents took me to a department store to get my first watch.
With Gabriel, I value those similarly informal moments and acknowledgements of his growth: the way the baristas light up when he leads me into Starbucks on Saturday mornings to make our order is one example, though it may not necessarily be a rite. This week though, at the mall as he left the playground for the last time - unless he tries to sneak in on a quiet day - the attendant gave him an ink stamp on the wrist and said, "You may be too big for the playground, but you're never too big for stamps. Okay?"
