The day will be cool, crisp, like the pages in a new notebook. I will rouse my children, one at a time, scattering kisses over rosy cheeks. There will be smiles behind protests.
My children will sit in a line, eating sausages and pancakes with syrup. Too soon we will lumber to the car. Belts will be buckled. Someone will realize just in time that she has forgotten something.
There will be chatter in the car, the kind of chatter that comes with unbridled excitement. I will leave one child at her school, kisses blown impatiently. I will realize that she is now closer to being an adult than she is to being a baby.
My heart will break, just a little, for what it used to have.
The chatter will resume. We'll park the car and walk to the building where I have been leaving at least one child for seven years. One child will rush ahead, eager to leave my guidance behind. The other will hang on, for just a moment more, then she will be gone too.
And I will be left standing, alone.
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This post was written for the Parent Bloggers Network blog blast sponsored by Hanes.
We're writing about the first day of school. The first day I wrote about won't happen for 5 years, but it makes me a little weepy thinking about it already.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
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5 people like me!:
Me too. I have teared up at every starting school post I have read this fall. This was one of my favorites. It's really well written and I no longer feel crazy for fearing my last one doing to school in five years!
awww I cannot yet imagine the first day of school for any of mine ... so heartbreaking!
That was delicious.
Ooooh, that left me all goosebumpy. I'm linking to it on my blog (partly to garner sympathy for myself. Whatever it takes, right?).
WOW!
That standing alone part really got me. It is a time that seems will never come, yet as I see my older kids gone already, I know it will be here before I am ready.
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