Let's start with the Good News, shall we? This morning went very smoothly except for the fact that Alex was too nervous to eat anything. We all walked to school together and I took him in to his classroom while Joe chatted with a teacher outside and then went to the gym to wait for morning program to start. Unlike kindergarten where the kids sat together at tables, first graders have individual desks...my baby has his own desk! How did this happen? We walked around looking for his desk and saw a lot of unfamiliar names along with some names Alex knows from his last class - Madisyn, Kaitlyn, Hunter, Mason...and Chris!! We thought Chris, his favorite friend from kindergarten, was going to be in another class. The relief on Alex's face when I pointed out Chris's name was just enough to bring tears to my eyes. After depositing his bookbag ("It's not a backpack, Mommy! It's a bookbag!"), we went to the gym for morning program.
Oh, one other bit of good news: Alex told me, "I think I'm just going to cry every day until Christmas. Then I'll be okay." Phew.
Needless to say, he's a tad bit anxious about school. He doesn't like getting up so early even on a good day (his school begins at 7:40 AM), big changes are unsettling to him, he has to transition back into the school routine, he is sad about not being with his teacher and classmates from last year. He got to lead his class back to the room after morning program and then he asked me if I could stay and help him with his work since he has a new math workbook that he doesn't know. HOW does a kid have performance anxiety before age six? Even though I work hard to give him praise that is about effort rather than intelligence, the message creeps in. Yikes.
I guess there really isn't any bad news. It's upsetting to see him upset and to know that today isn't going to be the only day of anxiousness. But that goes more in the "life happens" column and not the "bad news" column.
And now for the obligatory "first day of school" photograph, complete with closed eyes. (Hey, at least he was looking towards the camera for this one. I'll take what I can get these days.)
How is he so big? It just about broke my heart to see him cry today and be so nervous about school. I wasn't going to sit with him during morning program (99% of parents don't), and I watched him sometimes forget to be upset and then remember and start crying again. Another mom had gone over to sit with her daughter and notice his upset and began rubbing his back and encouraged him to sit in front of her, so once he had moved and was on the end of the row, I figured "what the hell" and went to sit with him. The other mom remarked about how her daughter (Madisyn) was so eager to get to the classroom and "strong like you are" she said to me, but that she (the mom) is all sad and weepy just like Alex. What a foursome we made.
I remember those first days -- I was also so nervous that I wanted to throw up, but I was also so excited. I loved school and everything about it. Sometimes I worry that Alex doesn't like school "enough" or that the emotional ups and downs are too much or that he won't fit in. But then I remember that all of that is MY STUFF. That's my frameworks about what kids are supposed to do, what school is supposed to mean, what is socially acceptable. And since I'm the grown up in this equation, I did the most grown-up, work-on-my-own-stuff thing I could do this morning--I reminded him that it was okay to be nervous, that a lot of other kids were nervous, that even mommies get nervous sometimes, and that I would be there to pick him up when the bell rang. Sometimes I think that is the single-most difficult job of parenting--just letting him be, and I mean that in the true sense of the verb and not "leaving him alone." He's going to make mistakes, he's going to do things that I would prefer he not do. All good. And the way it should be.
But...first grade. Wow.
