But I didn't cry this time, which is surprising

Before we went to his open house a couple of weeks ago I thought I'd be thrilled, excited, relieved and overjoyed to have him gone in the mornings again.  As I've said many times over, probably so many that you want to kick me in the shins, it's been a hard summer.  The kids are at the perfect age to bug the crap out of each other and they take full advantage of it, fighting and yelling all day long.

Plus Sebastian is so bored and I'm ill-equipped to ease that boredom when I spend most of my time refereeing.  So I was looking forward to the time when he wasn't looking to me all the time to offer him something fun to do.

But at open house I got that feeling, that rock in my stomach that told me I wasn't ready, even though I didn't have a choice. It's one more step he's taking without me, one more adventure he gets to go on that I'm not suited up for.

But there was also something entirely new going on in my ridiculously sentimental brain.  There was something so familiar about that school, and not just because he went there last year.  I peeked in another classroom as I walked by, and it was set up like the ones from my elementary school.  Not the new one where we weren't allowed to touch the walls, but the old one that was about 10 feet from the Catholic church, where us Catholics left class once a week for religion while the heathens who weren't catholic got to watch a movie.

I spent a lot of time in and around that place.  And maybe it's just because he's going to a catholic school that is right next to the church, but it felt comforting, solid, familiar.

....................................................................................................................

I changed his pants twice, and wanted to change them back to the first pair but we ran out of time.  He's in between sizes and I couldn't decide if I should go big or small.  I ended up with small.  He was so thrilled to be going to school, but when we walked into the classroom he seemed a little hesitant, much more so than last year.   

When I kissed him goodbye he said he'd miss me while he was at school.

Oh honey.  I missed you, too.

(Last year's first day of school post is here.)