Yesterday a milestone was very quietly reached. My youngest daughter finished Kindergarten. When my elder children reached this milestone there was much pomp and circumstance. There were a ceremonies, complete with songs, poetry, certificates, and cake. Parents were crowded into to hot and stuffy gyms all vying for the best picture of their well dressed 6 year old as they crossed over into the World of bonafide elementary school. But not yesterday. Yesterday my youngest child wasn?t wearing her Sunday finest, but instead her sister?s hand me down pants that were about an inch and a half too long, one pink and one green sneaker,( thankfully from the same shoe style and make), a striped shirt, and a hap-hazard ponytail, (filled with a mass of tangled curls desperately in need of shampoo). Instead of a ceremony she and her classmates decorated yellow baseball caps to look like duck faces, complete with an orange felt bill and googly eyes. Instead of a stuffy gym there was an open air playground. And instead of cake there was popsicles! All of us parents were tightly gathered at the outside door of the school, just like any other day, awaiting the dismissal of our kids. And just like any other day my daughter and her classmates came rushing out the school door in a blur of energetic shrills. (But today they were all wearing their duck hats.) The children poured out onto the playground to meet us and most importantly to have their popsicles. The teachers sat on the playground benches posing for random pictures with their charges as parents milled around, not quite sure what to do. I brought giant sunflowers for my daughter which I was then relegated to carry as I followed her around the equipment like a sherpa. As she played she gradually shed various pieces of her clothing and props, such as her raincoat, her new duck necklace, her popsicle trash and the like, all of which I was relegated to watch over like the good ?Sherpa Mommy? that I am. While balancing all of this accoutrement I was able to catch a couple of candid shots of her and her sticky classmates in a feeble attempt to cement the occasion in my mind for future reflection.
Soon my daughter was doing a familiar dance and so I scooted her back inside to use the bathroom. While I waited in the quiet hall I looked around at the postings on the wall. Each child had written a paper summarizing all of things that they had learned or experienced throughout the year. The recalled their passport adventures, learning to sing This Land is Your Land, going to see a play at Emerald City Theatre, …I stood there in the middle of the seemingly abandoned hallway and I felt a rush of emotion wash over me. My breath caught in my throat and tears started to pool at the sides of my eyes. My baby, my last baby, was a baby no more. Looking at my daughter as she came out of the bathroom and grabbed my hand, I was struck. It seemed like it was just a moment ago that we were combing the halls of this side of the school looking for her classroom assignment, identifying her desk, learning the name of her teacher. Like it was just yesterday when she was holding my hand as she explored the new classroom with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension. Now, here today, she was holding my hand again leading me around a room that she knew intimately. A room that over the past year had given way to so many new thoughts, ideas and concepts that would catapult her forward into a lifetime of learning. She looked up at me with those big brown eyes and that toothless grin and I no longer saw that little cherub that I had cradled. Now I saw a lanky, sassy, spark of life who was ready. Ready for the next chapter. Ready to grow. Ready to….ready to go because she had a playdate to get to. ?Come on Mom!?
So we exited the building once more and found her classmates? mom. The girls were giggling incessantly, chasing each other around, excitedly chattering on about all that they intended to do on their social outing. The Mom directed the girls to her car and they prepared to go. My daughter turned to me, made calculated decisions about what she intended to reclaim from me, and what she would leave me to transport home. She collected her hat, her necklace, and her bag, waved a quick ?Bye? and was gone; leaving me standing there with her sunflowers watching her race off ahead of me into the distance. A metaphor. (Oh yes, this being my third I can recognize a metaphor when I see one.) That formerly small child is leaving me, crossing over into a new phase of her life that will include bigger friends and bigger ideas, that require bigger time commitments, and leave smaller moments for me. But no matter her travels, no matter how big my new ?big girl? gets, I will always be just within reach, holding her sunflowers for when she returns.
SMILE On!
ML
You can find Miss Lori “Musing from her Minivan” at her new blogsite MissLori.TV, as well as on ChicagoMomsBlog, facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Myspace and her own performance website, Miss Lori’s CAMPUS
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