This one

I know I've mentioned a time or thousand that Will has a more difficult (to put it mildly) temperament. And he does. There's just no getting around it. He's so intense and feels every emotion so deeply that it's hard for him to deal with all those feelings. Sometimes it gets to be too much for his little body and mind and bad things happen. He yells, he gives the dirtiest of looks you'll ever get from a five-year-old. He stomps around and growls and groans and generally acts like the world is the most unjust of all realities.

But the flip side of this is that his excitement and happiness are almost real presences when he feels them. I watch him skipping down the sidewalk on our way to school, waving to neighbors and calling out "Hi!" without a moment's hesitation, and I'm kind of envious that he can feel one emotion so purely and in-the-moment-ly. 

I don't know if it's my imagination at work or what, but he's suddenly so into how everything is spelled, what letter everything begins with, finding "solutions" to problems both large and small, and "talking things over" that it's like he left for kindergarten last Thursday morning the preschooler I'd grown used to and came home that evening a bona fide elementary school-er. And while I still worry about his behavior and most especially his tendency toward being a little impulsive, I know that intellectually, for his little spongy brain, sending him to kindergarten was the right decision. Being around older students (as opposed to another year of preschool or Pre-K) seems to be benefiting him already. I know it's only been a week, and things could really go awry in the next few months and weeks in various ways, but for now, I feel good about kindergarten.

And while I don't think sending kids on to school (as opposed to keeping them out a yea)r is always the right decision for every child or every family (obviously not, as it's such a personal, almost agonizing one to make), I have a feeling that Will is going to flourish this year. It's almost as though he senses this greater responsibility  we're giving him as a sign of our confidence in him. And he'd be right.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  I don't know what this kid's going to do with himself, but whatever it is, I'm glad to be along for the ride. Loud, bumpy and (sometimes) scary though it may be. 

Happy weekend!

Kindergarten!

I know. I'm an awful parent. It's taken me almost a full week to write about Will's first day of kindergarten. But what can I say? I'm really trying to take full advantage of the time that Will's at school and Laura's napping. I have to say that having this time in the afternoons is something that I will definitely get used to (and something that I'll never take for granted, ever again in my whole life).

Back to the topic at hand: Will and starting kindergarten. His first official day was last Thursday (his phase-in day, where he went with one-third of his class) and the entire class went starting on Monday. And I hate to say this, but it was kind of . . . anti-climactic. I was fully expecting to be way sadder than I was but it never really happened. I had a moment of "Crap! We're not really leaving him" panic when we were crossing the final street to the school but once we got closer and kids were everywhere and it was a little chaotic, I got over it pretty quickly.

Will, as expected, never thought twice about leaving us, but this comes as no surprise at all, seeing as this is the same kid who never batted an eyelash when we left him for preschool and who has stayed away from us for more than a week without so much as asking for us. We got him situated with his teacher, I gave him a hug and they went inside (we were running a little behind schedule) and that was that.

And I only took one picture at school (with my phone, no less):

So, four days later, he seems to genuinely love it. He's a huge fan of eating in the cafeteria and says that gym is his favorite class. I, on the other hand, admittedly spend a lot of my time here wondering if he's behaving, which is my primary concern with him. But his teacher is good (really good) and she has a reputation for being good with young, impulsive boys, both of which Will is. So I'm going to try to stop worrying and remember that things will be fine. Things will be fine. If I repeat it enough, things will be fine. Right?

Also related to school, walking to and fro is a big hit with all of us. Laura loves getting in the "cool" stroller (?) and I like that Will gets to burn some energy first thing in the morning. An added bonus is that we've already met a few other families out walking their kids to school, which is nice. I read somewhere that at some point (maybe in the '50s?), 51% of kids walked to school, while only 13% do now. (I thought 13% seemed high?) I know in a lot of cases, like where I grew up, it just isn't possible, but it's beyond me that people here who live within easy walking distance to school (which would be most of the people here, since it's a small town) would choose to drive instead of walking. But that's neither here nor there.

And speaking of walking to school, it's time for me to start thinking of heading that way after cleaning up a little around here. But before I go, I'll leave you with Laura's sweet little self, lest she go unrepresented here today.

I know. When did she become a little girl?

More soon!

Love the one(s) you're with

Since you've not seen my children in quite some time, I thought you may have forgotten what they look like.

This was taken yesterday morning, on our last pre-before-Will-goes-to-school-playground outing. He starts tomorrow and I guess this, coupled with the fact that they're both starting to look so much older, has me feeling a wee bit nostalgic. And more philosophical than usual. What? Don't laugh.

We met Will's teacher last night and I know he's in very capable, experienced hands. The thing about being a teacher myself is that I have a great, great, great (can't emphasize great quite enough) amount of respect for other teachers. Sure, there may be some teachers here and there who aren't exactly inspiring or lack some quality that the more stellar educators have, but I know in my heart of hearts that the vast, vast majority of teachers are worth their salt and more. The school district is one of the (many) reasons we moved to this neighborhood, and I feel good about our kids' chances in life after working their way up through the system here. So, yes, I'll be anxious when I drop him off at his big (new! super nice!) school but I know they've got it covered and then some. Deep breath. One foot in front of the other.

What I'm not exactly prepared for is how both Will and Laura suddenly seem light years older than their beginning-of-summer selves. Will's obsession with the Titanic (?) continues, among many other curious interests, and Laura suddenly seems to be talking (loudly!) in long, well-formed-James-Joyce-style paragraphs. How this happened, I do not know. And the funny thing is, as parents, you'd think we would have figured this out long ago, that children age huge spans of time in minutes, and that you age right along with them on that same crazy timeline. But it always catches me off guard, this strange and illogical sense of their development being a little bit impossible within the confines of the space time continuum.

I guess I'm also feeling nostalgic because, in the words of Carroll's immortal Walrus, "the time has come to talk of many things." The many things, though, don't involve shoes, ships or sealing-wax, but babies and strollers and maternity clothes, all waiting to be boxed up and donated to someone excitedly awaiting a little one of their own. Because we've finally made our decision: we're a two child family and that's what we're going to stay. And while I wasn't ready to give all of this stuff away a year ago, on the off chance that we would someday have a third, I'm ready now. 

It's a complicated decision and it wasn't exactly an easy one, but I feel good about it now. Yes, there will always be a part of me that would love to look at a just-born baby with the lightning-bolt moment of you're-really-mine clarity, to hear a hungry baby down my "baby milk" like it's his or her job, to watch another set of tiny feet make those first crazy, wobbly steps. But there's also another, larger part of me that's already moved on, that's looking ahead to what the two crazy kids we already have are going to do, who they're going to be, the lightning-bolt moments I'm sure they'll provide along the way.

The fact of the matter is that I think two kids are really all I should do. I wish that I were the kind of mother (like my sister, who's a month away from having her fourth) who has a big family and does it with ease and grace and a sense of humor. But I know my limitations. I could have a third, I know. I have no doubt that I could take care of three, keep everyone fed and (reasonably) happy and make it to everyone's checkups and activities mostly on time. Living away from our families for my children's entire lives has taught me nothing if not that I'm capable in this capacity.

But somewhere in the middle of all that, I know that I'd get stressed out and crabby and yell at the kids far too often. Because I know myself, and I especially know my faults. Dealing with stress is not what I do best. And just thinking of another baby kind of makes me break out in a sweat. Will and Laura deserve a mom who's not always in a rotten mood, and Jamison deserves a wife who's not completely wiped out at the end of the day after the kids are in bed (although I'm still working on this, even with just the two.)

So while I sort through the old baby gear and clothes, I know that I'll be sad. It's hard to say goodbye to that part of your life, the part where you met your babies. But it's time. The silver lining, though, is that I do the two kid thing well. Not perfect, by any means, but I'm confident in my (our) ability to raise the two I've been given. I'm going to enjoy them for who they are and not think too much about tomorrow. I've been given two incredible little gifts and it's time to soak them in without trying to picture us with or without another little gift.

Deep breath. One foot in front of the other.

(More post-first-day-dispatches coming soon. Wish us all luck.)