You bring them into the world helpless, wiggly, and hungry. They depend on you for their very existence. They need nourishment to sustain them, protection from harm, warm hugs to remind them they are safe and loved, and guidance on how to be a good human. You have them all to yourself for the first few years, if you are able to stay home with them. Otherwise, you share them with whoever cares for them in your absence.
In the blink of an eye they are ready for school, and a yellow bus appears outside your door, waiting to take your little one off to their teachers and classmates. It’s a strange feeling, sending them off in a bus with someone else driving, to a building where someone else will be greeting them. Then they will be in a classroom with everyone else’s children and someone who will be teaching them the other things they will need in the future for a successful life. At the end of the day, they return to you on that same bus, coming home with stories about who did what, said what, and ate what.
They also come home with papers, drawings, and sometimes notes from the teacher. Take a good look at them, for they will be important documents, a record of their childhood. Find the really interesting ones, the notes from the teachers are especially fun, and put them in their own folder. You can even add the notes they give you in their childish handwriting, the cards they make you, and the pictures they draw. Keep these folders safe until they are grown. When they are adults, you can present them with their own folder, their memory lane of childhood.
I did this with my children, and I can’t even tell you how much fun we had reading those notes and cards, and looking at the report cards and papers. I don’t know if they’ve kept their folders, or not. They are grown with children of their own, and I am so proud of the parents they are!
My oldest son turned 48 today. He was my first baby, the child who taught me how to be a mother. I was 21 when he entered my life, and it’s been an amazing journey ever since.
Happy 48th Birthday, Sean. Love, Mom. xoxo
Susan B. Lovejoy 