So I am officially a working mother. I mean, yeah, I’ve been a working mom for five years now. But there was always this daydream that we might win the lottery or find some way to make a lot of money that wouldn’t take A. any work B. any time or C. any upfront investment, wiring of money to an exiled prince of Nigeria or purchase of a distributor’s kit and I would get to stay home with the girls. Some mornings I would lay in bed and think, if I suffocate Jay with his pillow before he wakes up I can cash in the life insurance policy. Then I’d have enough money pay off the house and quit my job and bake cookies and have tea parties all day. All those people on Oprah talk about how peaceful their near death drowning/suffocating experiences were. So it’s not like he’d suffer that much. In fact, according to those Oprah people it is kind of nice. So I’d really be giving him the treat of a lifetime. Then I remember that he does the laundry and takes out the kitty litter and so obviously offing him is not an option.
First Day of School
So today my baby started Kindergarten. Full day Kindergarten where she’s gonna be responsible for getting off a big yellow bus and carrying a tray across a cafeteria with out spilling it. And along with her any opportunity or dream of staying home with the kids, skipped off to Kindergarten with a huge backpack and High School Musical folder. It is sort of gut wrenching, you know. It’s like that last day of vacation and you start to think what if I never get to come back here. I didn’t eat at all of the restaurants yet. And some local in a souvenir shop tells you it’s too bad that you can’t stay just one more day because tomorrow is the day that special day each year that Marty the humpback whale actually sprouts legs, comes onto the beach and plays with all the kids until dusk when he helps usher freshly hatched sea turtle babies to the ocean under the full moon. And you just start to panic.
I started to panic. The kind of panic where you’re moving in slow motion but everything around you is flying past on fast forward. Nola was in Junior High, then dressed for the prom, then graduating. I never got to take her on a field trip or help with a class party. Because I am a working mother. An insecurity hit me that nearly took me off my feet. The stay-at-home-moms will never call me to help and if they need someone to carpool and someone mentions Nola’s mom one of them will say, “Oh she works,” they’ll all nod, “Ah.” They won’t even call to ask me if I want to. Those bitches. I had failed as a mother over my kid’s entire life in a matter of moments standing there in the kitchen this morning. It was just over. Then I remembered that some of my best friends are homemaking engineers and they are pretty alright and stepped outside of myself and little and wondered how Nola was feeling. I started to panic again. Did I prepare her enough? Did I even tell her that she was starting kindergarten today? Who would make sure she got to the bathroom when she needed to go? Is she nervous? If I ask her if she is nervous, will she think that she should be nervous and then get nervous?
She was a champ. She marched right into her room. Found a friend she knew and got down to the business of playing. After backing away slowly from our Kindergartner making sure she was going to be OK even though it was painfully obvious that she was, her father and I took our places in the hallway with all the other parents dropping off their teeny tiny babies to that huge school. There was a guy there who looked like he was probably a pro at flipping people the bird as he cut them off with his hog. He was a total blubbering mess. His kid was consoling him. Then I realized. No matter how tough you are, this stuff is hard. I remembered track meets all hunkered down in my blocks knowing that at any moment the gun was going to fire and I’d have to start. Dreading the gun. When I’d have to leap up and run. It was terrifying and there was nothing I could do to stop it. And here we were the first day of Kindergarten. Runners to your mark. And there she goes.
linzwriter
