First Day of Kindergarten

Today we left the nap roll at home, packed up his brand new backpack, and took Micah to his first day of kindergarten.

Because he doesn't turn 5 until September 12, he isn't allowed to attend kindergarten at the public school. Alabama is totally inflexible on that cutoff, so our only options were to have him repeat Pre-K or to do private Kindergarten/First Grade at his current preschool. Back in January, we asked his Pre-K teacher about having him repeat and she was pretty emphatic that NO, no he needs to move on. Her opinion hadn't changed by the time May rolled around, so here we are.

He's in a class with nine other children, some of whom are first graders and some of whom are kindergartners. He only knows one child, although he's met the teacher outside of school a few times. It's a straight-up for-real kindergarten class, with writing and math and weekly homework. They have pet geckos, assigned show-n-tell days, and are rewarded for good behavior with pennies. There's a bathroom pass, and he has to walk across the hall to use a full-size toilet (I foresee several accidents until he starts remembering to go pee BEFORE it's an emergency). He has work binders that we decorated with pictures of diesel locomotives. He'll be doing projects and taking field trips. They're throwing around terms like Fry words and DIBLES (both of which I had to google). It's kindergarten!

We've received a lot of well-meaning but critical commentary on the whole thing, none of which takes into account that 1) he only misses the cutoff by 12 days and 2) both his father and I were 4-year-old kindergartners, so we're well aware of the potential concerns and difficulties. We're both pretty confident that he's going to be fine. And once he starts reading...oh man, this kid is going to have a blast.

I'm very excited for him, but (like so many other parents this morning) I'm struggling a little with the feeling that time is going by too fast. Part of me wanted to keep him behind, just to keep him small a little while longer, just one more year. But that wouldn't be right for him, so this morning I smiled and took his picture and cheered him on.

Then I tucked his bear lovey into his backpack pocket, because he wanted Lubby there today so he could "talk to him a little bit about kindergarten." And it was a nice reminder that he's not grown up yet. There's still time to be little.