First day jitters

Tomorrow is Captain Adventure’s first day at his new school. He is sleeping peacefully on the other side of the wall.

I…am not so much with the sleeping peacefully thing.

I hope they can see how special he is, those new teachers. That he’s smart and funny and silly and sweet and sensitive.

I hope the other kids are, you know, nice. They’re all like him, which is both good and bad…he can be rather socially insensitive, but at the same time he is a little bit sensitive himself…

I hope he likes it. When we visited, he wanted to stay. He fussed like heck when we made him leave. He wanted to stay. He liked it…then.

But that was a visit. How will he feel about, you know, staying?

Without…me…you know, to translate? To anticipate? To assist? (And with this fine example of motherly smothering, I expose the main reason why homeschooling is not the best option for our poor Captain…)

I hope they have puzzles, at the new school. He likes puzzles, he likes them a lot. He likes to dump the pieces out of the box onto the coffee table and then bellow, “Mommy! Hewlp pwease!”

“Do you need help, honey?”

“Yesh. Sit do’w, mommy! Dat way! Hewlp me!”

And then he proceeds to do the puzzle almost completely without my help at all. Each time he figures out where a new piece goes, he smiles at me slyly, glancing at me sidelong from behind those long dark lashes, and waits for a comment or question. Maybe about how clever he is, maybe about how smart he is to realize that the blue pieces would go together, or perhaps I’ll ask him what those two pieces revealed when put together.

If I say nothing, he’s not shy about soliciting what he wants.

“Hey! Mommy! Ooook! Izzzzzattttt…blue? Izzzzzzzzattttt…Mickey Mouse? Izzzzzzat…good job?”

“That’s a good job all right!” I’ll say, and he’ll shrug modestly and accept my accolades graciously.

“Oh. Dank too.” A good job? Really? You’re too kind…

What if some kid is mean to him, at the new school? What if he gets pushed around on the playground? What if one of the other kids is a biter, or a cookie-stealer, or…

What if you just LET IT GO, ALREADY, and went to bed…because for heaven’s sake, you are accomplishing WHAT, EXACTLY, with all this fretting…?

When I was six-seven-eight years old, I would lie awake all night, the last night of summer. My stomach would jerk and heave. I would think about what I was going to wear, and worry about what the kids would be like, what the teacher would be like, what the year would be like.

It just sort of stopped one year, right around fifth grade. And it stayed gone for the rest of my school days and even those of my other children…until now.

What should he wear tomorrow? I don’t want to dress him up like a little dandy, but then again maybe…jeans and button-down shirt? They look so dashing on him…but perhaps that’s too Yuppie. Yeah, too Yuppie. T-shirt.

…monster truck? pirates? surfboard with ‘ALOHA’ emblazoned on it?

Sigh.

Go to bed, Mommy. He’s going to be fine, for pity’s sake. He’s not Timid Mouse, or Shaking Sammy…he’s Captain Adventure! He’ll go into that school, and he will survey his new realm, and within hours he will have the entire staff wrapped around his little finger.

…as long as he doesn’t go into Supreme Meltdown Mode when they make him leave the puzzle-station…

...oh Lord...