My Tiny Freak-Out

Last night I sat in a tiny chair in Coco’s classroom with a bunch of other adults and listened to her teachers explain what their preschool is all about. Maybe it was the sight of full grown adults in teeny chairs, I don’t know. Something came over me. Something akin to a silent freak-out.

We’re almost a month into her school and I’ve been all flippant and cavalier about this whole thing.

“Yay! Me time!”

“Yay! Someone is teaching her stuff!”

“Yay! She’s tired at the end of the day!”

You see, I was mostly excited about getting to slacken the tight rope of responsibility around my neck. Now I’m all, “Hold up. Isn’t she still a baby? Where did the time go? And can we go back for a bit, this is all a little too sudden for me.”

I realize I’m about a month late on this freak out. Everybody else got it out of their system at the appropriate time: the first day of school. You all took pictures of your kids and gushed about how your baby is growing up.

And I kind of snorted and scoffed. Cause I was just all happy-go-lucky about this school thing.

Now look who’s laughing. Actually, I don’t know who’s laughing. I just know I’m not. WAAAAAA!!!!!

The other day she told me that white is not a color, tiger’s have stripes to better hide in the grass, and thanked me for “reminding” her to clean her room. All the while I just stood there and took it like I would if a unicorn suddenly jumped out of my kitchen sink.

I just don’t know if I’m ready to be the mom that has to go to parent-teacher meetings. I don’t know that I can sit in a tiny chair with a bunch of other adults and listen to someone else talk about my kid. I don’t know that I’m ready to let go of that rope.

Too late, Hillary. The ship sailed and you better get with the program. The tiny chairs make you look taller. Like you have long legs, so that’s something.

As I sat there in that chair I observed her entire classroom from the perspective of a 3 foot tall person. It’s a pretty legit classroom. There was one thing that kept catching my eye–this big bulletin board of cut-out people with googly eyes. I gathered it was all the kids in the two classes that meet in her room.

When the meeting was over I got up to see what this board was all about. I’m so glad I did.

Apparently the kids had decorated their little “person” and wrote down a thank you prayer. This was Coco’s.

For some reason, she chose to forgo the googly eyes for buttons, making this look like a voodoo doll. Kinda creepy.

“Thank you God for my brother.” This made my mommy go pitter-patter-boing! I felt better. Like, maybe they’ve got her for a few hours a day, but I did that. I helped foster this love for her brother and seeing them reunite every day is always a pat-on-the-back for me.

 Chaucer charges into the classroom and Coco greets him with a big hug and “Hi’ya Buddy!” Of course they’re fighting by the time we get to the car, but still.

These little guys love each other and it has nothing to do with Coco’s school or how much Chaucer watches Barney. It’s part of what I did as a mom (so far) and what Matt did as a dad, and what God’s done in our family. No, we don’t have it all together, we never will. But I have two kids that love each other, and this makes a mommy’s heart swell and her uterus clap.

She’s growing up, but it’s gonna be ok. I think.