"These chains of love..."
Through a few processes of miscommunication, it turns out that Buck begins Pre-K 3 on September 2nd instead of October 1st, which we believed. (There is a long story about this which I'll tell later). So, Buck and I had to go to the local school uniform shop and buy his first school uniform today.
Even as I write this, a wave of sadness breaks over me. I didn't expect buying a stupid uniform to be such a big deal for me. I can still remember the 100's of times I went to giant plaid-filled factories to buy my own dreaded school clothes. I can literally picture the warehouse in Las Vegas where we would stand in line for hours to buy clothes we didn't want to wear that made me, personally, look like someone's grandma's puffy pin cushion. I remember being heart-broken that I wouldn't be buying a high school uniform in the summer after my 8th grade year because we moved to a new city and I'd be attending my first public school in the 9th grade. Weird, how much a person can love and hate the same thing (or maybe it's just girls and clothes).
The Clear Water Academy uniform shop is tiny - and in the basement of the school. It's in a medium-sized cage (probably where they used to store guns as the building is a converted military base). We were the first family to be able to use a Visa card as it was just installed in the "store" this weekend. Buck had to try on everything because it's his very first fitting. We were crammed into the side of the room and the owner/operator joked that "3 year old boys were much easier to fit than girls in grade 9 who need to find a washroom to change." I was unrealistically proud of Buck's little boxer briefs as he shrugged out of his shorts and into the polyester-blend grey pants he'll wear twice a week (for 3 hours a time) for the rest of the year. Potty trained and starting school all in 3 months!
That was when the sadness hit me. I think that the $200 price tag for 2 shirts, 2 pairs of pants, 1 sweater and 3 socks might make RKZ sad, but mine was an entirely different type of sadness. I have spent my entire life in school since kindergarden - even going straight from University to teaching for 13 years - and to think that Buck is beginning that journey makes this little step a big deal (to me, at least. I'm sure he'll barely notice). Of course, I'm sure this is all caught up in the "my baby is growing up" blah. blah. blah...but school. A big place where he won't have me all the time and I can't be sure that someone will be there to laugh at his stupid jokes or I can't know if anyone will understand those 3 year old sayings that are such a part of our conversations. I don't want Buck to stop saying things like "fairest of the Mall" because it's not "correct." I don't want who he is to be lost in who he's "supposed" to be. But I am a mature enough human to realize that all of these feelings are about me and not him. Buck is ready to spend 6 hours a week with other people. He is excited to learn his letters and numbers and to have someone whose entire existence (in his life) is just to teach him new things. I am smart enough to know that I will still be his mommy and that I am his first (and most important) teacher. It's still an emotional experience for me.
Buck just wanted to keep playing on the school playground.
Even as I write this, a wave of sadness breaks over me. I didn't expect buying a stupid uniform to be such a big deal for me. I can still remember the 100's of times I went to giant plaid-filled factories to buy my own dreaded school clothes. I can literally picture the warehouse in Las Vegas where we would stand in line for hours to buy clothes we didn't want to wear that made me, personally, look like someone's grandma's puffy pin cushion. I remember being heart-broken that I wouldn't be buying a high school uniform in the summer after my 8th grade year because we moved to a new city and I'd be attending my first public school in the 9th grade. Weird, how much a person can love and hate the same thing (or maybe it's just girls and clothes).
The Clear Water Academy uniform shop is tiny - and in the basement of the school. It's in a medium-sized cage (probably where they used to store guns as the building is a converted military base). We were the first family to be able to use a Visa card as it was just installed in the "store" this weekend. Buck had to try on everything because it's his very first fitting. We were crammed into the side of the room and the owner/operator joked that "3 year old boys were much easier to fit than girls in grade 9 who need to find a washroom to change." I was unrealistically proud of Buck's little boxer briefs as he shrugged out of his shorts and into the polyester-blend grey pants he'll wear twice a week (for 3 hours a time) for the rest of the year. Potty trained and starting school all in 3 months!
That was when the sadness hit me. I think that the $200 price tag for 2 shirts, 2 pairs of pants, 1 sweater and 3 socks might make RKZ sad, but mine was an entirely different type of sadness. I have spent my entire life in school since kindergarden - even going straight from University to teaching for 13 years - and to think that Buck is beginning that journey makes this little step a big deal (to me, at least. I'm sure he'll barely notice). Of course, I'm sure this is all caught up in the "my baby is growing up" blah. blah. blah...but school. A big place where he won't have me all the time and I can't be sure that someone will be there to laugh at his stupid jokes or I can't know if anyone will understand those 3 year old sayings that are such a part of our conversations. I don't want Buck to stop saying things like "fairest of the Mall" because it's not "correct." I don't want who he is to be lost in who he's "supposed" to be. But I am a mature enough human to realize that all of these feelings are about me and not him. Buck is ready to spend 6 hours a week with other people. He is excited to learn his letters and numbers and to have someone whose entire existence (in his life) is just to teach him new things. I am smart enough to know that I will still be his mommy and that I am his first (and most important) teacher. It's still an emotional experience for me.
Buck just wanted to keep playing on the school playground.
posted by BGrady at 10:08 AM
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