Mom vs. writer

By: Joelle Charbonneau

This week marks an important change in our family.  My son starts school.  For any of you paying attention, you might be wondering why this is a change since the small person attended pre-school last year.  Well, this year the tot will embark upon pre-K….his first five day a week school adventure.

YIKES!

As a writer this makes me kind of excited.  School is only 2 ½ hours long, but that is 2 ½ hours every morning in which I can fire up the laptop and write.  Deadlines, watch out!  I’m coming for you.

However, the mom is a little wistful.  Maybe even sad.  Because while I LOVE that my son loves school and that he enjoys his friends, I know this is the first of many important steps that will help him form into the adult he will become.

That probably sounds melodramatic.  I mean, he’s only 4.  There are over a dozen years before the kid will graduate high school and take his steps into the world as a government acknowledged adult.  Before then he’ll have highs and lows.  Love school one day and hate it the next.  He’ll make friends.  Lose friends.  Enjoy activities and then ditch them for newer, more exciting adventures.  Lots of excitement lies ahead.  Lots of exploration of the world around him.

And perhaps while he started exploring more of that world last year when he attended pre-school 2 days a week, the 5 day a week schedule feels more permanent.  More grown-up.  More official that he is now his own little man with a schedule and explorations that have nothing to do with me.  That his path, while still running alongside my own, is his own.

I’m proud.

I’m sad.

The writer imagines the paths he will explore.

 

The mom is hopeful that his journey is filled with wonder and that his smile is just as bright (if not brighter) when he reaches the end of the year as it is now.