About six years ago I put my little girl on the bus for her first day of Kindergarten. it was a momentous day, not just because my first born was heading to school, but because it meant I would have more time to spend with my second born, the one who had never had mommy to herself for more than a thirty minute gymnastics class.
One year later I dropped my littlest at pre-school, and for the first time I had two and a half hours, five days a week, to spend with the one person I hadn't been alone with since the day a doctor handed me a baby girl, me.
I'd never noticed how incredibly short two and a half hours really is until I began trying to cram everything I could possibly think of into that tiny frame of time. The second week I started to crave the day when I could put them both on a bus and be positively free until they stepped off again a whole eight hours later. For a stay at home mommy with two little ones the idea of a day to myself was my personal promise land... a dream I had imagined for years and one that I could almost taste until the third week, when a little blue line ripped that dream out of my hands and tossed it another six years into the future.
Last year my youngest went to pre-school and I once again did the two and a half hour cram, wishing and dreaming for August to roll around again and finally deliver my utopia... eight full hours of uninterrupted peace.
No toys throwing themselves out of bins...
No snacks spreading a three mile trail of crumbs and unidentifiable stickiness...
No little voices demanding I stop what I'm doing and fulfill their sudden whim...
Just me,
Peaceful...
Pleasant...
Getting things done.
All summer I've been counting down.
Last Friday I put my eldest on the bus for her first day of middle school and thought, one down.
Yesterday I put the second born on the bus for her first day of fourth grade and thought, almost there!
Today I put that last little blue line on the bus for his first eight hour day of Kindergarten...
and cried.
I never expected to cry. I am not a crier by nature. Ok sure the right movie, a heartwarming story about children being separated from their parents, or particularly touching commercial...
hmmm.
But really, for the most part, I am the last one in the room to reach for a tissue. So when my day of freedom came, my long awaited mecca of solitude,
finally came rolling up with flashing yellow lights and stopped in front of my house...
why did I find myself running barefoot through the rain, trying to reach the door before my little blue line could see me cry?
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