So this happened this week...

My baby started Kindergarten.

He was pretty excited about school and has been practicing how to say his teacher's name for the past two weeks. (It's a French Immersion program and her name is very French).

I was excited for him too. Kindergarten is a wonderful time in a child's life. There is play, there are new friends, there is learning, and of course, there is RECESS! (Which so far, along with Gym time, seems to be the only things of importance that he can tell me happen during his days at school.)

The classroom is not a new thing for my kid. He has been at an amazing playschool for the past three years and has had some wonderful teachers, has grown so much in personality and confidence in those years and has made what I think will be, at least one life-long friend who happens to now also be in the same school and class as him.

So no, I am not the sappy, crying mom standing at the door watching her baby go into the great unknown without her. (For all you sappy, crying mamas, I give you all a big hug and say, "Dry your tears and go get a coffee. ALONE. Enjoy these few hours just to yourself. Trust me on this one.")

Fast forward a year from now and I know it will be a totally different story.

Grade One. ALL. DAY. LONG. Away from me. And in a desk, doing studious big kid things, navigating the majority of his day without me and then getting homework.

I guarantee you though, that the thing he is going to look forward to the most and talk about the most will still be recess and gym time!

I have a lot of deep seated school fears for my children. Elementary school was not a really fun time for me. We moved from a small three-room county school to the big city when I was in Grade 3. My mother decided to embrace her heritage and enrolled me in a French Immersion school (I took a crash course in French over the summer!). It was a rough transition for me and I just never really fit in. I was the new girl, the one who would cry every day because I didn't understand my teachers and I didn't have any friends. I was also one of only two kids in my class (and quite possibley the whole CATHOLIC school) that was from a family of divorce!

I was easy pickins' for the mean kids.

But that was me. And I survived it. Relatively unscathed (years of therapy and self-medication notwithstanding).

I have different hopes for my children. I don't want them to survive school. I want them to thrive in school! I want them to love learning, to be confident, strong-minded little people. I want them to do better than I did.

Because this also happened this week.

And she ROCKED it!

If this week is any indication of the future for my children in the school system, they will do so much more than survive!

And if all their dreams for the future pan out, I will be one well looked after senior citizen!!

Happy School Days Everyone!

Natasha~