Back to School Blues

This time last year I was in hysterics.  On the phone with Mom at 2am   b.a.w.l.i.n.g m.y. e.y.e.s. o.u.t.    Seriously.  This time last year I was dropping off our little 9 month old son with a babysitter.  I loved the person that we chose to take care of our son while I completed my internship to become a School Psychologist, but nothing compares to you.  The mom.  I stayed home with Hudson for 9 months, and I was all he ever knew.  So the idea of dropping him off somewhere broke my heart.  Shattered my heart.  I went to my first day of my internship with big black sunglasses, and I left them on as long as possible.  I couldn't speak.  I could barely look up at the speakers during our meetings.  This inability to function subsided after the first few weeks of school, but my heart continued to break each time that Hudson would reach for me as I was leaving him each morning.   The first day that I got to spend with him for summer vacation felt as though I had all the pieces of my life back together.  My heart felt whole again.

Here we are again.  One year later.  Tomorrow I have to leave my little guy at preschool.  I feel comfort in knowing that he is one year older, and that when I say to him "I'll be back to pick you up." He might understand.  I take comfort in knowing that he is going to be with a classroom full of children his age, and that he will be developing skills that I couldn't begin to teach him here at home.  But my heart is still shattering.  This summer has flown by, and I don't feel like I had enough time spent with all the pieces back together.  Tomorrow will be hard.  Harder than last year?  I don't know.  I just know that my heart is shattering even writing this entry.

One of the things that Hudson's preschool teacher asked for is a family picture for the bulletin board in the classroom.  So we went out yesterday with our friends who also needed a family photo for their little girls' classroom.  We had lunch.  We took photos, and we grabbed a frozen yogurt.  Usually our conversations cover a wide gamut of topics.  Usually no topic is too personal or too sensitive.  Usually.  Yesterday; however, we talked about our children's classrooms and their teachers, but that was as far as the conversation went.  Neither Niki nor I asked how the other was handling the transition.  I'm not sure if this was a subconscious decision on both of our parts, or if it was merely a defensive technique utilized by all parties.  I definitely didn't go into our afternoon thinking... don't ask Niki how she's feeling...  It was as though we both knew that we couldn't handle that conversation.  We couldn't handle to feel the first cracks forming.  The cracks before the shattering.

At least our kids will have cute family pictures in their classrooms.