Sting

There’s been a lot going on here that has me wanting to write non-stop yet has also kept me from writing. So many things that I’m worried this post is going to just turn into a {yawn} list which is not what it is in my head. Plus, lots of the things that have been happening as a part of the cumulative “all of it” are actually things I want to tell you about on their own, not lumped in with other things. But I’m feeling myself unable to write any of it in a catch-22 sort of way. Should I tell you about the weight of it all, or should I tell you about the individual things, and round and round and round.

But the gist is this — there are lots of things hitting me these days that have me blinking away that sting of tears before they turn into anything more. Some of them are good. Some of them are not good. But all of them together have left my eyes feeling tired.

Zoe and Lucy turned five last week. This has left me reeling for no obvious reason. I remember my own fiveness so clearly. In my mind, I was so grown-up. So capable. So fully a person. And I’ve been amazed lately by just how much like real people Zoe and Lucy seem to suddenly be. They can reach the sink without standing on a stepstool. They can buckle themselves into their car seats. Their vocabulary is hilariously grand. And yet they are still so small, so at the mercy of their emotions. They’re still just cuddly little bear cubs.

Plus they started Kindergarten yesterday. And we decided to place them in separate classes for the first time ever. There are so many things to talk about here that I have no idea what to say. Once, when they were in the midst of the playdate years, I remember reading one of those edicts of parenting that told you how you should be doing one thing or another. It said that parents should work hard to keep playdates short — not much longer than an hour if possible — to keep kids from getting overstimulated. I remember adding up how many hours Lucy and Zoe had been alive at that point. It was a lot. And certainly broke the rules of the playdate time limit. As of last Sunday, their 5th birthday, Zoe and Lucy have been on a 43,800 minute long playdate, if you don’t count sleeping as being separated. I don’t because they often wake up during the night and get into one another’s bed. And in those 43,800 hours, they’ve spent maybe 10 waking hours apart. Total. No exaggeration. Bob and I thought it might be more like 4, but then we remembered one day last year when Lucy had strep throat and Zoe went to school (half day). So we rounded it up to 10 to account for any other random hours we couldn’t remember off the top of our head.

All this is a lead-in to telling you that I’m a little anxious about splitting them up in school this year. I’ve had kids for 5 years and for the entirety of those 5 years, my kids have been together. My child has always had another child there and looking out for her. (Either name fits in either space.) I am suddenly keenly aware of how much I depend on that, how secure I feel in their cohesion. And now I feel as if I’m casting my children adrift for no reason. And whenever I spend a few minutes thinking about it my stomach feels like I’ve just eaten a sandbag.

But happiness. (And you knew this was coming.) The first 2 days of school have gone perfectly great. With the exception of a little nervousness beforehand, they have both more-or-less flitted into school as though it was their favorite same-old-same-old routine. They greet us after school with huge smiles and more stories than their little mouths can spit out. They had a fire drill today and their classes stood side-by-side, and they waved at each other. They seem to have accepted their separation as though it was always thus. I still feel like I’ve had the wind knocked out of me when I focus on it. But they seem happy. And if they can be happy with it, so can I.