The other day, my five-year-old and I were at Staples, buying supplies for her first day of kindergarten. "I'm going to kindergarten," my daughter announced to the cashier, who didn't hear her. "Say it again," I told her, so she did. The cashier still didn't hear her (pay attention, woman!), so I announced loudly, "She's going to kindergarten."
"Oh, really," the cashier replied, without enthusiasm, and then informed me that I had bought the wrong kind of pencils (skinny, not chubby). I waved the list in her face.
"It says 'one box #2 lead pencils,'" I said. "That's what I'm getting."
"Well, I'm just sayin', we have the other kind," she said. (Where? Behind the DOG FOOD AISLE? You think I didn't look, lady? You think I'm going back NOW?) And then, handing me our bag of Stuff, she said to me, "Now, you're not gonna cry, are you?"
No, I am not. Did not. I dropped Suzanne off this morning and, just as I did with her Rebecca before her, walked home with a light heart. I am getting some return on my tax dollars, and my little girl is gonna have a blast; in fact, she's gonna blow them out of the water.
And, just like that, a whole chapter of my life is over.
I do confess to some nostalgia. It seems like only about two weeks ago we brought that first little bundle home from the hospital. (My husband carried Rebecca into the house in her car seat and put the whole contraption on the boot bench beside the front door, turned to come back outside to help me, and the carseat promptly fell onto the floor. I was recovering from a C-section, walking painfully up the front driveway, when I heard a big thump, following by baby screams. It is possible, though not advisible, to sprint two days after undergoing major abdominal surgery. Rebecca was pissed off, but otherwise fine.) That was nearly a decade ago--a decade of smelly diaper genies, stuffed animals, several million loads of laundry, lullabies, screaming matches, scrubbing barf off sofa cushions, playdates, birthday parties, Halloween costumes--it's a blur. Babies stretch your stomach past the point where any human stomach outside of an "Alien" movie could possibly stretch, and then they start ripping off the the ligaments connecting your spine with your pelvis. Children do the same thing, metaphorically speaking, to your whole world: they stretch your horizons, and rip you loose from everything you were attached to before. Sometimes it hurts like hell, and you will definitely look the worse for wear: my belly is never going back where it was, and my boobs are racing to see which one will reach my waist first. But who doesn't end life looking the worse for wear? Who wants to be a beautiful corpse?
So: today the baby who fell off the boot bench raced off to start fifth grade ("No kissing, Mom") and the baby who came after her starts kindergarten. A new chapter begins, and away we go.