On the Fifth Day of School

Today, on the fifth day of school (and tenth day of worrying about it), Will walked all the way to his classroom by himself.   This is a big deal for our slow-to-warm-up, anxiety-prone, sensitive kid. 

The last few days he has been crying about it, clinging to me with a death grip, overanalyzing every tiny detail...  He and I are so alike.

I told Mark that I wished the world worked the way we worked.  I mean shouldn't the world revolve around us?!  ;)  Will and I can be confident, outgoing, and brave - but only when we're ready.   Until then, there's no convincing us, no rushing us.   Not even a chance.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where kindergartners need to walk themselves through three long hallways weaving between bigger kids twice their height.  They need to go to their classrooms on the first day and stay there and let go of your hand and be brave after just a quick kiss goodbye.  They need to jump in to a completely new room and routine and atmosphere at 8:15AM without looking back.  They need to trust an adult they've barely met to keep them safe for the rest of the day away from home.

That's not the way I work, and it's not the way Will works either.

I wish I would have been able to stay in his kindergarten room for the first hour - just the first hour - sitting in the background, letting him stay close to me in his safe bubble...  Letting him just observe and take in a new environment and get acclimated.  After an hour or so, he'd warm up and feel comfortable and be ready and he'd join in the fun.  I could sneak away, and we'd skip all the tears and tantrums and nervous tummies.

That's not the way the real world works, damn it.  And so, instead, it takes five days of school and ten days of worrying about it to fight through the anxiety and to muster up the courage to choose to be brave in the real kindergarten world.

Anyway, I'm so proud of him for pushing through.  He earned himself an adventure bike ride with Dad, a whole night of having Alexa (our Echo Dot) in the garage (his happy place) pumping his favorite jams (he really has great taste in music, by the way), and Tropical Sno this weekend. 

We are proponents of bribery, obviously.