I’m just pissed, Guys.
We are a magical 15 calendar days away from the last day of Kindergarten, and, on this day, I screwed up and apparently did not order a lunch for Noelle like I thought I had. Her school handles lunch menus a little differently, and you have to preorder the lunches you would like for the whole month, and then you need to keep track of that on your own calendar at home. We let her eat a school lunch once per week (so she can have normal food like nuggets and hot dogs). I had circled today as a school lunch day, but apparently I was hittin’ the wine a little too hard the night I made the selections and messed it all up.
Long story short, I got a phone call from the school while I was at a super rare and secret destination (cough, Target, cough). So, I whipped through the Subway drive-thru at 8:55 a.m., got her a kids meal, and dropped it off at school.
The point to all of this is that I was really hoping for an A+ in remembering lunches for the whole year, but I ruined it with such a short time to go.
I think, as parents, we have such high expectations for how a school year will go, and are expectations any higher than in Kindergarten? It’s our child’s first official school experience, and we just need the year to be full of rainbows and apples and teachers in denim vests with school bus buttons.
We need our kids to be full of enthusiasm and excitement for school. We want them to learn to read and write and ‘rithmetic. We want field trips to the fire station and Christmas concerts and very first best friends.
But…we forget. We forget that our children are human and the teachers (and parents!) are, too. The newness will wear off. The excitement will ebb and flow. There will be days when the chore of making a lunch seems equal to scrubbing a toilet. You’ll forget to check the papers in the folder. You’ll forget the permission slip. The teacher will stop wearing the denim vest with school bus buttons. Why, Teacher? Why?
There is no such thing as a perfect school year streak. Someone will drop the ball, and it will probably be you. You’ll dream up a Pin-worthy snack and end up sending a box of Cheerios instead. You’ll want to be a part of every classroom party and end up sending the plates and napkins every time. You’ll no doubt make that walk of shame down the hallway to deliver the forgotten lunch or the cans for the food drive or a coat for your child because the weather man is a liar. It happens to the best of us. I hope.
Your child will make mistakes, too. She will forget to do her homework or practice reading her book. She will talk when she isn’t supposed to or make a poor choice with a friend. It is all part of the process, in my opinion. We are raising adults, not children, and it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Few skills are mastered in one school year, and it is important to remember that.
So, here I stand, (nearly) on the other side of Kindergarten, and I am struck by how insanely fast it went and how much my child has grown since August…physically, emotionally, academically, and spiritually (Catholic school for the win!).
Pat yourselves on the back (and pop a cork), fellow Kindergarten parents. We did it! Even if it wasn’t a perfect year, we did it all the same.
