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First Day

First Written Friday, February 16, 2007

So apparently, according to my mother, I am an odd duck. I used to look forward to the first day of school with fervor. The smells of new shoe leather, the classroom and supplies. The feel of your new first day dress, and perfect September air. Everything was new, and fresh, and full of promise. Which teachers were to become your destiny? The ones who drove you crazy with their stupidity, or the ones who picked your brain and tested your limits? Would your friends be in your class, or in your lunch? What about the guy you had a crush on?
I want to tell my children they will have great teachers, and terrible ones. They will make some amazing friends who will bring them nostalgia in adulthood, and they will have some friends who cause me to inwardly cringe. They will have fabulous days, and atrocious days, but the good days will outnumber the bad. There will be a lot of learning experiences that will be invaluable to them for their entire lives. But these are things about which they will not listen to me. I am an old woman, I know nothing about what it is like to be in second grade/fifth grade. They don't think I remember that my second grade teacher wore a red dress on the first day of school, that I learned to ride my bike without training wheels that year, that Mark Perry broke his arm and we got to sign his cast, that Laura Perez told me there was no Santa Claus. They don't think I remember the feeling of being the new girl in school, or the embarrassment of when my wraparound skirt fell off in the hallway after recess. They have no idea that I still remember buying a stuffed calico cat for my favorite aunt at the school christmas shop for 10 cents.
Their closets are ready to go- they have accumulated absurd numbers of outfits, and an Imelda Marcos-worthy wardrobe of shoes. They have their pretty new Gap backpacks all filled with colorful supplies, and the chore list is ready to be tacked to the kitchen wall. I will cross my fingers that they will get to a point, as this summer winds down, when they are filled with anticipation and eager for the sounds of the bus arriving at the corner. I will stand in the front door, and watch them run down the driveway with the backpacks they picked out by themselves bouncing against their tiny hips. They will sit in their assigned seats and wave emphatically at me while the bus roars away, and my heart gets tugged along with it. And all the while, they will have butterflies playing tag in their bellies. This is my hope for them. Let them be odd ducks, too.
Posted by kerensa at 9:37 PM

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