Motherhood & the New School Year
A new school year marks not an end to summer, but the fresh clean
windows to the world thrown open, time ticking, a countdown of lessons
learned. It's a kaleidoscope of ever changing days that morph my sons
into people I hadn't known the day before. The beginning of school
leaves one foot in yesterday and one in today, while I stumble to feel
the foundation of the present beneath me.
My first grader comes home after a mere three days and waxes brilliantly about spheres and 3-dimensional perspective. Already he's doing basic multiplication and division when I thought he was still stuck on the concept of subtraction. I say this not as a braggart, but as a dumbfounded mama wondering where her baby has gone. He barely utters goodbye as he whisks out of the car in the carpool line, nary a look back to catch my eye. He walks with a swagger of innocence and confidence that only a six year old can muster.
My four year old heads to his last year of preschool next week. Already he's mimicking his older brother's inflections as he pretends to sound out words. His latest library selections include books about New World explorers like Poncede Leon and Amerigo Vespucci and the sinking of the Titanic. He favors joke books and Shel Silverstein to Max and Ruby. Noggin is suddenly a bore, while the Food Network is a delight. Again I ask, where has my baby gone?
My sons love school, and for that I am grateful. They, like most children, have an infectious curiosity and are downright giddy when they master new skills or cement new knowledge. They are at an age where they still talk to me, answering my yes/no questions with more than a grimace, as I suspect they will in a just a few more years. Each son raises his volume just atish to out talk the other to tell me about his day, reflecting on his teacher's rules, tattling who got red carded, describing what bug he discovered on the play ground, humming the songs he sang in music class, explaining theconvoluted rules to a game from P.E.
The beginning of a new school year marks a whole host of conversation fodder.
And aside from the poetic beauty of my changing, growing, maturing children, the beginning of a new school year leaves its indelible mark on me in other ways too. Shedding the lazy pace of summer (for we are a far cry from an over scheduled family), school makes me bulk up with reasons to doubt myself as a mother. School rips open my tightly woven veil of maternal perfection, leaving all the ends frazzled and dangling.
Continued on the next page
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