My oldest starts Kindergarten tomorrow!
Okay… I will start with the selfish banter that has been consuming my thoughts this past week. I want to be there… I want to be there so f*cking badly. I want to wake up early and have a special breakfast ready for him in the morning. I want to be the one to go in his room and wake him up. I want to help him get dressed in his cool new ‘first day of school’ outfit. I want to lace up his fresh Nikes that me and him went and picked out together. I want to pack his lunch and add an extra cookie for him… I want to put a little note in there that he will find when he digs in at lunch time. I want to drive him to school and listen to his favorite song over and over. I want to tell him how proud I am of him and how I cannot wait to hear all about his day when he gets home this afternoon. I want to be there for him because that is where his Dad is supposed to be… that is the only place his Dad is supposed to be on the first day of Kindergarten. There… with him. And that is not where his Dad is and that is so incredibly sad and heartbreaking. His Dad made decisions that led to actions that were terribly wrong and these decisions and actions came with horrible consequences for everyone involved as well as others that were close to those involved and one of those consequences is not being able to be there in person for my boy as he takes on his first day of Kindergarten… and for that… I will never forgive myself.
But there is more to the story than the mental warfare that I have been waging on myself… there is the overwhelming sensation of joy that runs through my body as I think about how proud I am of my boy. I was talking to him on the phone this past Thursday and asking him about starting school… how he feels about it… how it was meeting his teacher the night before at ‘open house’… how he feels about riding the school bus home for the first time (I am way more nervous than he is about this by the way!)… basically peppering him with all the Dad questions I could possibly think of. And in true 5 year old fashion… he just says “It will be good Daddy. Lets play Rock, Paper, Scissor!” So… Rock, Paper, Scissor we played and once again… my little guy blows my mind with how much he is advancing. For the last few months… he has always wanted to keep score when we play games on the phone… which I love because it is an opportunity to have a little “math lesson” hidden in the game. But this time… not only did he keep score in the traditional sense… adding a point to my side or his when one of us would win the “match” and remembering our scores for the 10 minutes or so while we are playing… but we now have decided that if someone loses a match… that person loses a point as well… and if we tie aka we both throw rock… both of us get a point. Now… not only is he adding the score… he is subtracting as well… and he is doing all of this completely by himself. Adding… subtracting… keeping track of the score… playing the game… I was so proud of him! As I got off the phone… feeling very confident about him having the tools (emotionally and otherwise) to tackle this next adventure awaiting him at Kindergarten… I also realized that this is what parenting from prison is all about. Using the resources that we have at our disposal to connect… teach… learn… listen and grow together when the opportunity presents itself. Parenting in this environment is not something you can prepare for prior to coming in here (trust me … I tried)… it is an ever changing… always evolving journey that you will have with your kids as times goes on and when you think about it… that journey is parenting in the real world as well. So… in a small sense… there is comfort in that.
I now choose not to focus on the negatives that I (nor him) can control and focus on the fact that I get to call him tomorrow afternoon and I cannot wait to hear all about his first day of school! Even though… as all of us parents know too well… it may end up being. .. “It was good Daddy. Let’s play rock, paper, scissor”… as long as I hear those words coming from my buddy… I will be as happy as I can be given the circumstances.
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Put an extra cookie in there 😉