Night before The First Day

I had prepared another post mourning the loss of My Little Camera...it was a doozey, too, all about how sometimes losing things is not as much about the value of the item, but the inconvenience of replacing it, and how the thug who took it (which is the only remaining possibility) will get his payback when he looks up how much the camera is worth and realizes it may not be enough to buy his Vega a tank of gas. Yeah, had that post ready to go until more important thoughts started clouding my head, like

my oldest boy starting kindergarten. Tomorrow.

I thought to myself, my goodness, if this mommy blog doesn't have some sort of salute to that momentous occasion, then I say...what blog?

So I'm determined to post something about it, even if it takes me all night long to get it written. Although I have to get up earlier tomorrow than I have in several years to make The First Day happen with as little angst as possible.

There's laying out his the new clothes...uniform-wear, I should say. And I actually asked Mickey "what do you want to wear tomorrow..." Whoops.

And positioning the new backpack by the door, which is empty this first trip but for the new lunchbox. Mickey has informed me he wants to try the cafeteria selections, though...and soon.

Then there's the pancakes and sausage I've promised him...and for some reason he has requested a bigger pancake than Alex's. Doesn't make much difference if Alex is eating two pancakes to his one, but "okay," I told him.

And getting The Big Camera ready to go. And its battery charged. And getting my name and address on the bag and a small cluster of ink bombs stashed inside that will explode if it gets more than ten feet away from me.

And, tonight, trying not to think of this as an emotional thing. Trying to remind myself that very soon we'll have this school thing down-pat: the schedule, the homework, the activities. It'll all become second nature. Pete and I, and Alex for that matter, will slide into the school environment and the magnitude of the first day will soon fade in the shadow of the next milestone.

But I wonder if I can actually accomplish that last task: I think of myself as pretty level-headed when it comes to emotions. And then my nephews go off to college...and I get emotional not for me or them but for their parents saying goodbye to them. And I think of my niece recently becoming engaged, and I tear up not when she delivers me the wonderful news, but later when I celebrate it on the phone with her mother.

So how am I supposed to keep it together when I'm seeing my own son through a milestone? I truly don't know. I truly hope there will be at least one other parent taking it worse than me, someone else in the group who didn't wear mascara on purpose. Then maybe no one won't see me ugly-crying into a bank of lockers. 'Cause it's gonna happen...I can just about guarantee it.

But contrary to my rambling here, the day is so not about me. It's about Mickey and his First Day...one that I hope he remembers forever.

Or at least the sausage and the big pancake...