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Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Happy Birthday OS!

Happy 6th birthday, OS! I know it was a big day for you. It was your first day of kindergarten as well as your birthday not to mention your first bus ride and first experience with a school cafeteria. It's also the longest you've been away from me in a day.

I was impressed with the way you bounced right out of bed eager to start your day. You opened your presents, played for a while and then got ready for school after I promised you that you could use your new telescope to look for planets tonight. You were so excited, but fortunately happy enough to be cooperative despite the excitement. Your planet lunch back was packed in your back pack, and out the door we went. The school bus arrived and for a moment I thought I saw a flicker of hesitation pass over your eyes, but then you hopped right in with a big smile on your face. You were gone so quickly, that I was only able to catch the back of the bus on video.

I'm sure that as you get older you'll want to know how I felt when you went away for your first full day of school. Hey, you already ask me now how I felt when you went to preschool for the first time. I was really happy for you. It felt like I got to relive a small part of my wonderful kindergarten experience. I had hoped that you would get the message that kindergarten was something to be excited for because I was so excited for you. I think it actually worked!

Did I cry? No. I was just too happy for you. I was so proud of your eagerness. I did feel though throughout the day that I had left something behind the way I feel when I'm driving around without my wallet or my cell phone. Yeah that's a bad analogy but it's true. You can print that out and take it to your therapist when you're older!

I started checking the clock at around 1. Preschool used to end at 11:30, and even when you stayed for lunch you were done by 12:30. You were out until 1:30 for only one week of camp. This seemed a lot longer. I was worried that you would find being away for so long difficult. On the contrary, you took everything in stride. You were unfazed by the major bus snafu on the way home, and it didn't bother you that you didn't snack program. In fact, when we did "thumbs up" to express what we like about the day, your items were (in order)
  1. The fact that you had a really good birthday
  2. The fact that you got to ride the school bus
  3. The fact that you enjoyed your first day of kindergarten
  4. and the fact that you got to eat birthday cake
I don't think you would have handled things the same way one year ago. During the year you were five you showed a tremendous amount of growth. I was glad that you missed last year's kindergarten cut-off by one day. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure you could have gone to kindergarten and done fine, but you just didn't seem ready. Last year I would have cried when the bus pulled away. Since then you've blossomed with growing self-confidence and self-awareness while becoming more outgoing. If there's a problem, you're not afraid to ask for help. Last year I saw the potential. Yesterday I saw the reality. When you walked into your classroom for the day-before-school class meet-and-greet, you introduced yourself and your brother to every kid you saw and asked them for their names.

When I reflect back on today one phrase comes to mind: you are ready. Recently someone told me that they held their daughter back because they wanted to give her the gift of time. While the choice wasn't ours, you got the gift of time from our town. You have done wonderfully with that gift.

Happy birthday, OS! May all the stars and planets shine brightly for you.

Love,
Mommy

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Children can grow a lot in a year.

Labels: ,

posted by Alex Elliot @ 8:42 PM   4 comments
4 Comments:

  • At 9/03/2009 11:36 PM, Blogger Kami's Khlopchyk said…

    Happy Birthday to your boy! What a day, so glad it went well. Here in Canada kindergarten is only half a day, I can't imagine sending them off for a full day right off, I would have been checking the clock too!

     

  • At 9/04/2009 6:30 AM, Blogger Jen of A2eatwrite said…

    They really do. It's just amazing. I couldn't get over how much growth C would experience over each time he went away to sleep away camp when he got older.

     

  • At 9/04/2009 1:34 PM, Blogger Goofball said…

    That's such a proud , energising and hopefull post :)

    Happy birthday to your son

     

  • At 9/05/2009 5:38 AM, Blogger Sally HP said…

    so sweet! And it's always shocking to me to look from one year to the next to see how much they've changed...sometimes even two months' time!

     
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Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
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For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

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