Raise them up in the way they should go.

I've been kind of freaking out about kindergarten. Sending my baby boy off to the big mean world* to be all on his own pulls at my heartstrings. In another year he'll be at school for seven hours a day, which will likely be the majority of his awake hours, and our influence over him will be waning ever after--at least in terms of quantity. Here is where we hope that the first five years were good enough to teach him where to turn, whom to trust, and how to make good decisions.

I know it's not the end of the world. I know he's not going off to boarding school or a Lord of the Flies island or something. Kindergarten is a whopping three hours a day--except on Fridays, when it's two whole hours. And we all know he'll love it (especially since I've gone to great pains to make sure he'll be in the same class as his little friend who shares our back fence).

Anyway--he's picked up on the stress (because I'm awesome at hiding my feelings). We were trying to decide where to send him for school** and I asked his opinion. "I don't want to go to kindergarten," he told me. "I think I'll just go to BYU."

* Where he'll color and eat paste and participate in the yearly kindergarten operetta...


** Nearly no one in our neighborhood sends their kids to the boundary public school (they're all charter all the way), and our assigned school is just as far from our house as two other public schools. Our decision, in case you're dying to know: one of the equidistant public schools, though not our boundary school. We chose the other school for the year-round schedule (better for retention rates and for the mother who is mourning the complete loss of her five-year-old) and because the other kindergarteners in our neighborhood who are going to public school are going there. Charter schools aren't for me.