But I have noticed it.
And it makes me so very, very sad.
And, a little bit proud.
We are slowly losing Brae.
He is growing up. Our grip on him has loosened. He's coming into his own. He is a boy. A school-aged kid.
He has his own ideas, opinions, and interests, and he articulates them like an adult.
He has manners (when he chooses to use them) that rivals most colleagues of mine.
He has sleepovers. At other people's houses. And he packs his own bag.
He picks out his clothes, knows the way he wants to wear his hair, and can make himself his favorite snack.
But, it's not just these things. If it was just these things, I may feel only a little sad.
But I feel very sad.
And the thing that makes me the most sad is that, when I pick him up from a long day at school, he climbs in the back of the car, and is silent the whole way home. No more jibberish about his days at day care, or his days in preschool. Those days are gone. Instead, he gazes tiredly out the back of the window, watching the world go by. He's exhausted from a big day of learning, playing, and navigating social norms with kids of all ages. Fatigued by making new friends and keeping the old. Labored by mounting homework, school expectations, and little boy responsibilities. He looks worn from the weight of the world on his tiny, kindergarten shoulders.
This makes me sad because he is experiencing real, grown-up emotions, and doesn't feel the need to seek me out for comfort. Instead, he just wants to sit with his feelings, and figure them out.
This also makes me a little proud because I feel we have done a good job, so far, of equipping him for the world. He is independent, smart, personable, appropriately cautious, and curious. And yet, if we are to fully complete our job in preparing him, we need to allow him to feel those uncomfortable, unavoidable life feelings, and figure out how to deal with them.
But, he's also still just a little six-year-old boy, that I see still as my six-month-old firstborn. And, I'm sad that I cannot protect him from uncomfortable feelings, and even sadder that he doesn't expect me to.
I swear you write like you are in my head most days. Our 1st grade son is very much the same. When he went to Kinder I felt so left out. Because I work full time, we rely on our daycare for bus service to and from school. I didn't even get to drop him off and pick him up....I felt like there was this whole world he was in that I was not a part of and it did not sit well. Luckily my schedule is flexible and about once a week we would forego the daycare drop off and I would stay home and take him to school myself. And he loves it. He loves showing me his classroom and letting me into "his" world. It is a little better this year as we have become friends with some neighborhood families with kids in his class. Some of the SAHMs give me updates and we still try to so some drop off and pick ups when we can. I also like to volunteer in his class a few times a year. But you are right....it is so hard to let go and let them have those uncomfortable and weary thoughts and feelings. They need to learn to work through them and it hurts us to see them struggle.
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Tears! He looks so grown up!
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