First Day
“Kids are resilient.”
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying ‘I will try again tomorrow. ”
I remember hearing this very stern voice while trying to unhear her as she tried to depict to me how my one year old would react to sudden changes. I was so convinced that he needed his mom to walk him through each and every moment of life so as not to traumatize him. I remember really trying to tune her out.
Suddenly, two and half years later, those words resurfaced within me. Although her voice was attached, she was not physically saying it to me. It just instantly replayed as I talked myself down from fighting tears and panicking considering what that first day would actually be like.
You see, six months prior, I just KNEW that he was ready. “Mommy I don’t want to go to kool,” he’d wine after I’d answer his daily question of “where am I going today?” I felt horrible. I had no choice but to keep sending him to daycare until he could transition to the “big school” because I knew it would be more damaging to snatch him out than to keep him there for just a few more months.
We confidently prepared for day one by accessorizing with a few of his favorites: the Ninja Turtles lunchbox and a Spider-Man book bag. We talked about how cool it was that his new uniform was his favorite color, blue! Nothing seemed to really resonate as he started to feed himself lies and scare me in the process. “Mommy there will be mean kids at school,” he recounted to me several times. I knew it was anxiety and I knew no other way to comfort him than negating his statement. I was losing control and I did not like it.
I continued talking to him and attempting to excite him. We even took a trip to the school so he could see what it looked like. The toys inside of his classroom won. By day one, he was ready! Not a single year was shed. With mommy on his right side and daddy on his left side, he was fearless and ready to conquer “the big school.” He posed for the cameras and just like that, a confident pre-kindergartner emerged tackling new experiences as they came and embracing the newness of a school that he will regard as another home for the next seven years.
