Wednesday, January 02, 2013

I'm Lost

Today the kids went back to school; it was hard.

It started out being hard because they'd gotten used to 10 a.m. starts and hour-long breakfasts and today was about waking up at 6:30 and getting out of the door by 7:30.

And then I walked Nu to her kindergarten locker and kept saying goodbye and not leaving. I started getting shaky and teary and then it dawned on me that this was their first day back at school since the Newtown massacre. I'd kept the kids from school for three days after that Friday, and then it was Winter break. It "helped" that A had just shattered his wrist and we were ferrying him to assorted surgeries.

Intellectually I knew that this was exceedingly maudlin and irrational and that my kids enjoy (and need!) school. And it was extremely embarrassing. But I'd look around at the crowd of goofy kindergartners milling about at waist-level and the harried, smiling teachers trying to appreciate the kids running up to them en masse to tell her all about their new sweater/hat/toy/lunchbox and kind of lose my sense of proportion.

Finally I ended up calling A who talked me down--first gently, then mockingly--and got me home.


****
In other news, we just started watching Lost. We're only about a decade or so late to that party.

_

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