Just Write: Kindergarten.

Third week in.

Kindergarten.

Five plus years ago you came rushing to this world weeks before we planned. The girl everyone told me I was carrying turned out to be you, my boy, the son I had no idea I was made to raise.

You've turned my world upside down. I've never met a more high energy, joyful about life kid than you. Your smile and your antics get me every time.

You push the envelope faster and harder with each passing year.

"Mom, I didn't get in a lot of trouble, just a little. I didn't go to the principals office," you tell me on just day 5 of kindergarten.

Your idea of trouble is silly. Apparently when you're having a good time it's hard to switch back to serious, learning time. Good thing your teacher understands.

"No trouble," she wrote me, "just sillyness. It's the 2nd week of school. He's fine."

And I read the words, he's fine, six times over, because it's hard for me to accept that you could possibly be fine without me to solve your little worlds biggest problems.

You know the things like Nora and Taylor making playdates on the bus and a 1st grade boy not letting you sit by him and then that little teensy issue you have with the fact that you never get to play on the playground at school because your half-days are full to the brim with learning and learning and learning.

It's as though I couldn't wait to send you and now I just want to hit pause and send you on the days I'm going crazy and keep you home the days I'm not. I wonder what they'd call that, crazy-making home school?

Being your mom has been one of the best gifts I've ever been given. I love that you love school and your friends and that you're finding your way at school. Even if it's without me.

At orientation day your teacher asked us to write down our goals for you. Some moms and dads wish their kids to be the smartest or the fastest or to have the most friends, but for you, it's simple.

I wish for you to love school. I hope that even on that negative 23 degree day that we'll have come December or March or whenever that you'll still be looking outside and asking if it's time yet and watching for the bus and lighting up your face when you see it and climb on.

I wish for you to make friends. Without me there to intervene {or interview}. But more than that I hope that you always are kind even if someone isn't your friend.

Sure I'd love to hear you recite your address and telephone number and even master reading books besides the BOB books we've been working on, but most of all, I wish for you to still be full of joy.

Love school. Be kind. And keep the joy, dear boy.

And slow down a stitch. Give me a few blinks between kindergarten and high school. I need them.

Linking up to Just Write over here today. An exercise in free writing, no-editing.

Don't miss the girls spa day giveaway here and Barney live ticket giveaway here.