My son officially started kindergarten today.
I’m leaving that sentence alone like that just so it can sink in.
The question you’re inevitably asking me is if I cried this morning. And though my eyes did get a tad watery, no, I did not shed any waterworks. I wasn’t even super anxious, not even when A said to me that he didn’t want me to leave. Once he was seated in his classroom, I was ready to go, much to the chagrin of my husband. But I’d been standing in corral of k-3rd graders and their parents for 20 minutes and in a crowded hallway for another 5. I’m not super fond of large swarms, and I was feeling antsy. Plus, I had to get to work.
But I have to say about this whole school thing, this is where true parenthood will be put to the test. Not only do I have to make sure he gets up, takes a proper shower, brushes his teeth thoroughly, AND has a cleaned pressed uniform, I also have to make sure he has breakfast before he leaves the house. I will admit, I have been spoiled. At each of the four places he has been prior to school (a friend’s daycare center, a babysitter/grandma figure, and two childcare centers), I could just drop him off in the mornings and he was fed for free there. Sure, two of the places had uniform requirements, but their uniforms were no big deal since, it was just a matter of basic uniform pants and a basic polo shirt. I could scoop up the pants for less than $10 apiece and the shirts for $4 or $5. And again, as long as I dropped him off by 8:30 at the childcare centers, he was fed breakfast, lunch and a snack free of charge (or at least included in the weekly fee). I was even semi-prepared for the school systems here in Maryland since each year, I had a supply list which generally included things like crayons, boxes of tissues, wipes. As he got older, the lists got longer, so I wasn’t too shocked at what I had to buy for this year, only at the quantity.
The middle of the summer this year, I decided to start picking up items from his school list and was done relatively early. Of course, it required printing out said list. As I said, I was used to the idea of having to supply crayons, tissues, Clorox wipes, sanitizer and even paper (this time composition notebooks and construction paper). But here’s where things get a little weird for me: four glue sticks! 2 24-packs of pencils! Dry erase markers! The one that most astounded me was the pencils. Why 2 packs of 24? In my mind, I can see the teachers providing my kid with 2 pencils and then giving the rest to the school office to sell back to kids (paranoid I know, but 48 pencils?). I know they’re meant to last a school year, but really?
The other thing that threw a curve ball was the specificity of the uniform. Sure, the kids can wear any khaki colored pants, and they can wear any type of shoe, but the shirts?! They are custom embroidered by one particular uniform shop. The short sleeved shirts are $23 and the long sleeved ones are $25. And there’s a $10 tie. And the option of a vest and a sweater. So 3 of each type shirt plus a tie, and you do the math.
The absolute upside? This is a public charter and is therefore tuition free! After 4 years and 2 months, I am not paying for all-day care, only before and after! While I still have to pay something every 2 weeks, I am seeing about a 25% reduction in tuition. Of course, I do have to make sure he gets breakfast and lunch every day, whether it’s homemade or paid for at school.
And this is where I say that school is the true test of parenthood. And while we didn’t exactly flunk today’s test, we did flub a bit and almost forgot to make sure he had lunch. We ended up paying for it in the cafeteria. Apparently this school goes by an online code system, where the parents can add money and the kid only has to punch in a pin number for their account. No more robbing kids for milk money I guess.
I am glad that I had the foresight to follow my girlfriend’s lead (who is the mom of my youngest godson, who also happens to attend the same school) and actually make sure that he ate before he left the house. Yet that puts a whole new set of burdens on us. Now we have to make sure we actually buy breakfast stuff and prep it on weekdays. Before, we (and I use “we” very loosely to mean mostly my husband) cooked breakfast on the weekends and days off (when we didn’t go out for it). This whole breakfast in the morning is going to shake up my entire world. I have to get up earlier, prepare a meal, and change his order of operations (he brushes his teeth right after the shower, then lotions and dresses) to put on underclothes, eat, brush teeth then finish dressing. Add to that the fact that some days, I will have to prepare lunch for him as well. Then there’s the evening routine as well. It’s a further commute, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he has soccer. This is going to require him changing into his practice clothes at some point. Yikes.
My worry? Okay, I have at least 2 besides the lifestyle change above. One, Ayden is the small fish in a BIG pond again. In his first 3 places he went, he was 1 of 7 or 8 tops. Then last year, I got a little panicked when I realized he was 1 of 17. His class this year has a total of 28 kids! My other worry of course is that Ayden is a talker. He always feels the need to express himself. While I don’t exactly want that stifled, I also don’t want it to create a problem for him. What’s weirdly comforting is that my mother-in-law tells me that her son (the one I married) was much the same way. She said that it got him onto the debate team.
I can only hope. But for now I can only pray.
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