The first day of school is here! While the novelty of school is now old hat to my 2nd grader, my kindergartener is nearly beside himself with anticipation and excitement. Although we put him to bed at 8:30, he was bouncing around until 10pm.
"My brain won't shut off!" was his excuse. "Will my new school have lunch? What about snacks? Will I make lots of friends?" he inquires enthusiastically.
"Yes, yes, and yes, honey," I answer, happy that he is so eager to go.
As we head out the door and begin our walk to school, we join the slew of frantic parents and a sea of little backpacks making their way to the gates of the facility that will be in charge of our precious offspring for the next 6 hours.
"This will be great," I think to myself. I thank my lucky stars that our family will not have to deal with the horrible vehicular traffic each day since we can walk.
We head up to the entrance to find that it is a campus of morning chaos. Kids are everywhere. Parents nervously try to find their child's classroom, and are shaking with fear as they prepare to release their little babies to a stranger and allow their them to be subjected to the influence of not only that stranger, but all these other little brats who have had only God knows what kind of upbringing and who will no doubt be carrying all kinds of germs. The kids could care less. The smell of hand sanitizer causes my eyes to burn.
My husband takes our 2nd grader to this classroom, and I escort our kindergartener to his. Just then, I get a call from another frantic mom who I met the week before. She is panic stricken since she cannot find a place to park. I offer to help her by allowing her to park in my garage just two doors down. I am on my phone for less than 1 minute… that's all., and I turn to find that I have lost my kindergartener!
Now, I am panic stricken. I taste bile in my mouth as my stomach churns. Where did he go???? Beads of sweat begin to form on my brow. I begin to scour the campus, calling his name. Other parents meet me with looks of condemnation and pity. The first day of school and I lose my child! This is not supposed to happen! Not to me!
Silently cursing myself for offering to help a fellow parent, during my search I spot my husband and older son touring the campus. How do I tell them I've lost their son and younger brother? I bite back tears of frustration, as I feel my throat closing. My heart feels like it's about to beat out of my chest.
"I've lost Kannon," I tell them. My husband looks at me quizzically, then realizes I am serious. Being the good natured man that he is, he refrains from giving me an earful and settles on a simple dirty look instead. He then rolls his eyes and begins to help me search.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity, we find him playing happily on the kindergarten playground.
"Honey, where have you been???" I ask.
"Here playing, Mom," he answers plainly, yet I do detect a suggested "duh" at the end of his reply.
Did I just miss him in my scour of the playground 10 times over? Had he truly been here the whole time while I was off getting dirty looks for calling his name as I ran around the school yard advertising my bad motherhood? At this point it didn't matter… he was safe and child protective services wasn't called.
Filled with relief at the crisis averted we take our kids to their respective classrooms and say our goodbyes. All is well, and they have made it to school. I see other mothers tearing up as they head back to their cars. My heart skips a beat. I catch my breath and realize my own eyes are wet as well. Maybe it's not just the fumes from the hand sanitizer.
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