One of my favorite children’s books is My Friend Harry by Kim Lewis. The little boy named James gets a new stuffed elephant he names Harry. They go everywhere together and slowly Harry gets worn and well-loved. On James’ first day of school, Harry sat in his car seat all day waiting for him to come home. On Friday, Annabelle’s worn and well-loved Hermione doll that has been glued to her hand for months sat in her car seat for hours while AB had her first day of school.
I don’t know how we got to this point in our lives that Annabelle is old enough to be in first grade. She was only born fifteen seconds ago! Here she is exactly six years ago this week, all soft and squishy and tiny. She was the cutest baby that ever lived. She holds onto Hermione the way she held onto Mr. Lion for years.
I liked homeschooling last year and loved all the time we spent together. Correction: I loved most of the time we spent together. Sometimes it was TOO MUCH TOGETHERNESS ALL THE TIME. There are several reasons she’s going to school this year and maybe someday we’ll go back to homeschooling but time will tell. I’m trying not to plan much these days because we don’t even know what stores will be open next week, let alone our educational plans for 2022. Going to school for the first time during a pandemic is not an ideal situation, but we decided that she’d still go giving the information we were being given. The many, many, many homeschool vs public school discussions Christopher and I had were very emotional and opinionated and usually left one of us in tears. Obviously, I mean Christopher was in tears. I am as stoic as Mount Rushmore.
I’ve spent every single day of the last 6.5 years with Sesame and I feel like I’ve lost a limb when she’s not here for hours on end. The first morning after we dropped her off I sat on the living room floor because I didn’t know what to do with myself. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my alone time. It’s so nice to pop in and out of stores with dealing with a car seat. I can go on long walks in the morning before the temperature hits 100*. I can decide at 10:35 to get my nails done and off I go. I need to make a plan for how I’ll balance house work/errands/appointments and me time while she’s gone. I assume the schools will be shut down in a matter of weeks and AB will be back home. I don’t want her to come home and I regret not spending more time on my own things. My hope is that I can get my things done while she’s at school so that when she comes home I can focus on spending quality time with her instead of saying “I can’t right now because I have to __________” when she asks me to play.
I was very proud of myself for not stating many opinions when she was picking out a backpack. I tried to steer her towards the cuter ones but she’s “not so into cute these days.” She picked a galaxy backpack which is very fitting for her interests right now. I picked out a dress that checked my cute box and her “patterned but not very patterned because I only want, like, a medium amount of pattern” box. I thought she might object to wearing a bow on the first day but she didn’t. Praise the Lord. She loves art so I got this big bow with an appliqued art pallet.
I also got us matching heart necklaces. The card them came on says “Here are two necklaces, one for you and one for me. We will wear them soon…when at school you’ll be! Wear it to school while you work and play…you will have my heart all day.” She hasn’t taken hers off since Friday.
I sat in the back with her on the way to school for the first time. I didn’t want her to be lonely back there; it had nothing to do with me wanting to be near her. All I could think about was when I sat in the back with her when she came home from the hospital.
Don’t think all I do around here while she’s gone is lay around eating bonbons. Yesterday I washed Hermione’s tiny clothes and washed out her matted hair. It was a full spa experience. There’s always someone to keep clean around here.
