Who Needs A Mommy, Anyway?

My oldest daughter started pre-K today. She's been thrilled all summer, and so have we. We're excited about the program at her school. It's a dual language program, the goal being that the kids will perform at grade level in both English and Spanish by the time they move to middle school. Her teacher is from Spain. Very cool. This is a great opportunity, one we almost didn't get because at first we were only on the waiting list.

Yet there I was last night, like so many other moms, wondering if this was the right thing. She could stay home another year. It's only pre-K, right? Sure, she'd hate me for awhile, but at least she'd be safe from all the other kids or mean teachers or headlice or lingering asbestos or child molesters who might be casing the building. At 11:30 p.m. I began assembling the child's lunch. You would have thought she was going on a four mile hike. Carrots, orange, sandwich, pudding, juice...should I add granola? Cheese? What kind of mother sends her little one out into the world without adequate protein?

I rejected the plastic spoon Matt handed me for the pudding. "Get the one that's shaped like a whale," I said.

"What's wrong with this spoon?"

"It's not happy. I want the happy whale spoon." Sniffle. Sniffle.

I wrote her a little note on a heart-shaped piece of paper, zipped up the fancy lunch box, then realized there wasn't a good place to write her name without ruining it for the next user (yes, I'm sentimental. But also very cheap.). We didn't have any masking tape. For the first time ever, I lamented not inheriting my mother's obsession with organization. SHE wouldn't be digging frantically through drawers at midnight on the night before her baby's first day of school. Oh, no. SHE would just pull her trusty label-maker out of her purse and go to town. And she would probably pack the extra cheese and granola too, just in case.

Well, lucky for me, my daughter isn't so consumed with those little details. In fact, she was so ready to spread her wings that nothing and nobody could stand in the way of her big debut. Literally. When they called her name to join her class line, she crawled over me and dashed away to claim her spot before I could stand and let her pass. Funny enough, the next kid responded to his summons by sprinting past the line and toward the door, bawling his little eyes out. My little angel made a face that read, "What's the big deal? They have snacks here. Pull yourself together, son."

My daughter will turn five in about a week. And she is already too cool to wave goodbye to me. When we left, she was correcting the teacher's pronunciation of her name and looking around like she owned the place. Something we'll have to work on. But for now, maybe they should pair her up with Mr. Crybaby. She would boss him around, and he'd feel like mom hadn't really left him, after all.

I feel a bit useless. Maybe I'll go buy a label maker.