I bought Alex some new shoes yesterday. Size 1. In BOY sizes, not toddler sizes. It took a while to figure this out, we were trying on shoe after shoe after shoe and they were all too small. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why we couldn't find a shoe big enough. 13s were too small, where were the 14s? Oh, hey Mom, there ARE no 14s! You have to go to the OTHER section. To the BOYS section. This was disappointing to both of us. To me because this is just one more sign that my baby, he's a growin' up. To Alex because he can't get those cool Lightening McQueen shoes he wanted so bad. Also disappointing to John because boy shoes cost twice as much as toddler shoes. AND they aren't nearly as cute. "Cute" is not a factor in designing boy shoes and I guess I'm just too old these days to recognize "cool" as it applies to the 6-12 set.
This shoe shopping trip was just one of the many outings we've been making over the last week preparing for Alex to start Kindergarten. We bought school supplies and a backpack and now shoes, next we'll be getting a couple of new school outfits and a haircut then, in theory anyway, he'll be ready to start school. I'm phrasing this wrong, HE's ready to start school, I am not ready for him to. I guess it's not surprising that Alex getting ready to start school is a bit hard on me. I've got all these conflicting feelings about it. Of course I'm excited for him to embark on this new part of his life, and he is over the moon excited to start Kindergarten, he talks about it non-stop. But he's still my innocent little boy. MY boy. And it feel sorta like this is the end of that. He's not really mine anymore. I'm sending him out into the world to learn and discover who he is. And yes, I do realize this is a bit dramatic seeing as how he'll be in school fewer hours than he was in preschool last year, but it just feels like such a huge monumental milestone that is going to change everything.
Preschool was always voluntary, optional. He could go or not go, we could pull him out if it wasn't working, of if we thought it would be fun to do something else for a while, it's was just school practice, he was still...a baby, really. Kindergarten is the beginning of his real, no-shit, school career. What if it's too hard? What if it's too easy? What if he has trouble making friends? What if he makes friends with kids I don't like? What if he turns into the kind of kid I don't like? What if...I'm not the most important person in his life anymore? I think that's what it is. Becoming a big boy means distancing himself from his mommy. Maybe that won't happen this year, but it is inevitable and it's already breaking my heart and IT HASN'T EVEN HAPPENED YET!
I'm kinda known for my overreacting, and it's a good thing I married John who barely reacts at all to things because it helps to keep me sane. Only John has left on a business trip to Ireland until the end of the month, which also happens to be the last three weeks before Alex starts school and there is no one here to tell me I'm overreacting, so I just keep on overreacting!
I try to ask myself, what would John say to me? Well, he'd probably ignore me for a while until I've really worked myself into a froth about the whole thing. Then he'd roll his eyes at me and say I'm acting like a crazy person. Then he'd tell me that he's not going to talk to me until I calm down. Then, eventually, he'll hug me and tell me that everything will be ok. Just like I freaked out in the weeks before Alex was born; What will it be like to have a baby? Will I be a good mom? Will he like me? Will our marraige change? We figured things out and life is even better now than it was before. We'll navigate these changes too.
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