Super Sonic   +  mothering

Big School

My Chop starts 'big school' next year. He's so excited and so ready some days I could drop him off at the front office of the local public school and tell them he is their problem already, thankyouverymuch.

Something tells me that, in fairy tale fantasy, I will very much miss the company of my best mate, my almost constant sidekick of the last five years. Something else, something far more cynical, reminds me that I will most probably breath a sigh of relief that tending to his unspendable energy and rampant curiosity is now his teacher’s mission for six hours a day, five days a week. Which might let me off the hook just a little bit.

The Chop is a typical almost–five–year–old boy. He has questions for everything, and answers for most others. Games aren't fun unless someone's winning or dying. Sisters– younger sisters– are for tormenting, and they have a scream button that is fun to push when you're bored. And, as an almost–five–year–old boy, you get bored on a very regular basis. In fact, the excitement of knowing that leaving the house is imminent is enough to make you instantly revert to the fore-mentioned tormenting of your younger sister.

The child is ready for school.

The point where romanticism and cynicism meet– the small, clear pool known as realism– tells me that the regret and sadness I'm inevitably going to feel at some point in my son’s first year at school will revolve more around the end of the ’being at home with two little kids’ stage than missing my son at home every day. In the same way, it's a relief– it's the beginning of that ’one at home, one at school’ place in my life. A place where I won't miss my husband quite so much, perhaps, because I never really visualized this life clearly with him in it.

Either way, I'm looking sunny side up at this one. One at school. The tea–party–princess at home with me.

How exactly the Bump will cope without the constant company of her big brother, who's she so close to simply because her mother has spent so long being emotionally unavailable... well. That's another matter altogether.