It was a particularly lazy Saturday morning, and I’d wandered into my 10-year-old son’s bedroom settling in next to him while he played on his iPad.
“Ethan, will there ever be a day when you won’t let me snuggle with you?”
“I don’t know, Mom. Why?”
“Just asking,” was my response, but what I really wanted to tell him was that I needed to know when that day would come, so I could prepare my heart to break in two.
Earlier that week, I’d received a note that the Middle School Parent Night for rising 5th graders was right around the corner, and it was at that moment, I realized that we were officially leaving an era behind.
As my son finishes out the 2nd half of his fifth-grade year, we are entering the end of our Elementary School Era.
My daughter started Middle School last year, and at the time, it was a whole lot to process. I prepared myself for all of the good and the bad. Some of my expectations were right, and some were wrong, but, for the most part, Middle School entered our lives with little to no fanfare. Dress codes and locker stress? I’ve got that. The big kid changes that exiting Elementary School offers no longer freaked me out.
What does freak me out this time around?
Leaving behind an era that’s been so wonderful to me as a mother. When my daughter started Kindergarten at our public school in Oakleaf, she was a part of the inaugural class, and we’ve been blessed by Oakleaf Village Elementary ever since. Even though I worked full-time, I was determined to be involved. I took in treats, helped with stapling, and ate lunch there at least once per month in those early years.
When my daughter fell off the monkey bars and broke her elbow, I was there. I was visible and present the year my son struggled for reasons unimportant to this blog, but those struggles were real, and I made choices knowing that no matter how hard it was, I needed to be around.
There’ve been birthday cupcakes and lunches at the special visitor lunch table. The field trips have been an annual event even when it felt like I couldn’t possibly take an entire day away. I’ve walked through corn mazes and corralled children around museum displays watching my kids interact with peers. It was in those moments of sack lunches and out of school excitement that I learned so much about their personalities.
I wasn’t able to be there every day, but the teachers and staff have been amazing partners to me as a working mother filling in during those times when other responsibilities called. They’ve offered words of encouragement to my children when they needed them and brushed off knees before sending them back out to play.
So, yes Middle School, I’m no longer afraid of you, but I am a little pissed off at you right now. Because there you sit with your classes that usher in the next phase in life. You and your walls represent a time when my kids start navigating some of those tough experiences all on their own because I’ve learned something happens when they enter those Middle School doors for the first time. Suddenly, they think they’ve got it all figured out and no longer need me to assess potential broken bones or celebrate birthdays.
So, goodbye Elementary School. You’ve been good to us in so many ways, and it only seems fitting to highlight a few as we come to the end of an era.
Thank you for…
Teaching my daughter that she loves being on stage and that no matter how small she is, for that moment, she can be big.
Our first broken bone and the dedicated nurses.
Speech class and the teachers who care enough to make a difference.
Horrible school pictures that we now look forward to looking at and promptly sending back each year.
Showing my son that he can love math and baseball all at the same time.
School lunch politics that offer great conversation around the dinner table. Ethan might have a career in sales because of his ability to trade for anything with the offer of a Cheez-It.
Field Day, Mother’s Day picnics, pancake breakfasts, carnivals, awards ceremonies, and countless other events and parties that I look back upon fondly.
And last but certainly not least, thank you for teaching me how to juggle responsibilities and to fight the parenting battles worth fighting and for helping prepare my kids for their next phase in life. You will absolutely be missed.
