Another step along the road
Posted under People I love
News just in: apparently Bertie is going to Big School in September. Hardly a shock, I’ve known about it for the best part of 5 years. I’ve even known for a while that today was the day I would find out which school he’d go to. It’s hardly ‘hold the front page stuff’ is it but, somehow, just seeing it in black and white makes it all feel rather real, it’s really going to happen. He really IS a big boy and he really IS going to go to school in the Autumn. And now I know which school he’s going to I can now picture it in my head…the school run…the uniform…the classrooms where he’ll spend his days…and some of the children who will be in his class. It’s all taken on a very ‘real’ format, almost cinematic in fact.
Of course I’m excited for him, because he is excited and he’s so ready for school now. He looks huge compared with most of the children at his nursery school now when, for so long, he was seemed so small and so young. It’s a big step to make, to take that first step on the path of formal eduction with all the thrills, surprises, challenges and opportunities that it brings. And, of course, it’s a significant step along that never ending path of independence…that leads away from me, MrSpud and Diggy and to wherever he wants his life to take him. That’s the way it should be.
But, oh dear, there’s a little voice lurking on a distant shore in my mind that is silently screaming, “DON’T TAKE MY BABY!”. Therein lies the rub: he is ready for school, but am I ready to let him go? Believe me, I’m not an earth mother type – far from it. And he’s spent a couple of days at nursery every week since he was 10 months old, so I’m hardly fretting at being parted from him. I can’t quite puzzle it out what’s brought on this quiet sadness, but it’s definitely lurking.
I told a friend earlier in the week that I wasn’t sure I was ready to give him up to ‘the system’ and for our lives to be so rigidly governed by the pattern of term times, school holidays, the school day, after school activities and all that stuff. She mentioned that starting school also means losing more control over your child’s sphere of influence, and I think there’s a little of that mixed in to it all. But, then, that’s just how it goes and increasing the sphere of influence is a good thing. Right?
I just can’t put my finger on what it is, not at all. Perhaps it’s because having a school aged child means the baby days are well and truly over, but I don’t want another baby and frankly I’m glad to see that back of the early baby days. Shudder. It’s certainly tinged with huge regret that my boys will be split up for the first time, I know they’ll be fine but I’ll miss their loving, glue-like relationship with each other. And I’ll definitely miss our Mondays and Fridays together, just pottering about doing this and that, everything and nothing, visiting people and places and just hanging out…just us three. I wonder what it will be like to potter about with just Diggy, lovely and lonely all at the same time I suppose. It’s not even that I have any misgivings about the school, because we are very fortunate that he’s going to a wonderful school. I wish I could write about it and the style of learning they follow, but it makes his school too easily identifiable.
So, it’s not because I don’t want to be parted from him, or that I don’t think he’s ready for school and nor is it the school itself that’s the problem. So what is it? I’m sure part of it is a little bit of fear that I’m going to have to give him up to playground politics and all the angst and upset that comes as part of the parcel of children making and breaking relationships.
I just can’t put my finger on it, and writing this post isn’t getting me any nearer to it. Perhaps it’s just the fact that him being ready for school is tangible evidence of the relentless passing of time. I must be getting old because time seems to be slipping through my hands like sand these days, taunting me and teasing me with every grain that trickles away.
Or perhaps I just don’t want him to grow up. Perhaps it’s just that simple, and if it is then I’m scuppered because no amount of ‘blogging it out’ can resolve that one.
He really is a Mega Boy isn’t he? I’m sorry for your wistfulness and wish I could offer some insight, but instead I am offering HUGS! And I am thinking of you.
Ah yes, a very big transition. I admire you in that you are already processing it. I imagine that you will love the early school years. So many new adventures for all of you. I so enjoyed the pics of your beautiful boy.
No marvellous insights from me . . . only here to empathise and commiserate and moan about the fact that COLLEGE is now the hot topic amongst my friends. How did that happen to those downy headed toddlers of ours?
As I have told you before: How fortunate that you became a camera genius just in time to capture your boys’ childhoods.
Deb…ha ha ‘processing’? Festering on it more like..
Bee…get back over here would you, you’ve been away too long. Camera genius? Blush blush…
Sarah…we’re not allowed to call them Megaboys anymore, sobs quietly. They moan and say, ‘We’re NOT Megaboys we just boys’. But they’ll always be megaboys to me…
I could have written that word for word. Sam is my one and only – in his 4 years we have been through so much and we have done it together. I know when he looks at me, when he talks to me, I am his world – I am so not ready to give that up and away. He is insanely excited about school, about his friends. He like Bertie has been going to childcare (full time at first!) since 10 months old – but this feels different.
I worry so much about how he will get on at school, will he be liked/have friends/will he struggle etc – he, as always, is blissfully unaware and excited.
Fab post Spud, puts into words a lot of what I’m feeling and my boy doesn’t go til September 2011. I’m feeling a bit tearful now just thinking about it. We have to let them go though don’t we? Sob!
Oh dear…hands round tissues and tea & cake to the teary mummies club! Woe is us….xx
All of a sudden he looks older in that first photo… how did that happen? I think I always fretted over those moments in advance, but when the time actually came it felt like the right thing. It’s an exciting journey he’s about to begin! Of course, the first day of Kindergarten for my son, my friend and I dropped off our kids and then went out for breakfast and sobbed together!
It is a testament to your loving encouragement that he is so excited and ready for school. You’ve given him a great foundation to weather to ups and downs of this next phase of life. Mourn the passing of the baby era, but be ready to celebrate all the new opportunities headed his way during these early school years. It’s an awesome time! :)
Thanks for putting this in words. I’m also dreading next year when my magnet pair is separated. Alexandra even called for cuddles from William rather than me when she hurt herself the other day.
And there are so many other things that worry me too. How will it go? How will he cope? Will he get “pidgeon-holed”?
Perhaps what hurts most is the thought that he has to face much of this alone. I’ll only be able to provide support pre and post school, not during those challenging hours.
My booooooooooy! (grabs tissues, burns herself on gulp of tea and crams in cake)
Well, I’m a step, several steps down the road
a new grandmother to Henry.
It seems such a flash of time. Gosh, I do remember everything.
Re your previous post with picture of The Priory (to my mind) the BEST
Persephone –and I’ve read lots.
So glad BEE has resurfaced
all best wishes
Oh, Spud. I think it’s that he’s growing up and starting school is a relentless reminder of that. Your sweet baby is not such a baby anymore and that always, always clutches at a mother’s heart. The day Sloane started kindergarten was a happy, happy day for me because she was at my school. And still, I cried the whole long, long walk down the hall and to her classroom.
Your son is a beautiful child. I remember when my daughter first started school. She was so ready and excited, and so was I, but it was such a poignant thing to realize that someone who was once the size of a bean inside me was racing off, hair in the wind, down the road, and I couldn’t race as much with her.
Thanks for this post. Lovely and poignant.
so sad – so sweeeeeet! cheers from zuerich, eliane
Change is always hard. I am cheekily going to suggest that your main uneasiness results from the realisation that you will no longer have four day weekends with the boys ;-) We’ll also have to get used to the new authority of having to answer to the demands of the school as opposed to expecting Nursery School to answer to our demands (like getting them to school on time!) I sympathise deeply as we’re in the same position with Imo but I’m made to feel so much better knowing the children will be tootling down the road to a village school that is going to further embrace their creativity and personal development in a way that most aren’t lucky enough to access in this country.
i am going through the same thing with my twins…it’s hard. it was comforting to read that another mom is feeling the same way i do. thanks.