Hurricane Freak Out

Hey guys. I'm back. And I'm freaking out.

It all started last Friday, when Layla and I went to go meet her first grade teacher. Up until that point, the fact that Layla was getting ready to go into the first grade hadn't really bothered me much. She loves her school, I love her school and, despite another year of sweaty panic as I tried to remember everyone's name (which is obviously my problem and not theirs), I was actually looking forward to the upcoming year. Thanks to volunteering in her Kindergarten class, I was  familiar with the faculty and comfortable with the school. And for some (crazy) reason, I figured my familiarity with the school would afford me some kind of freak out immunity when it came to transitioning to the first grade.

Well, I figured wrong.

And here's why: I didn't realize it until the minute that I stepped into Layla's new classroom, but I was expecting the first grade to basically be Kindergarten 2.0. Blocks, art tables, kitchen sets and little grouped tables. Sweet and safe. Okay, so maybe those things had freaked me out about Kindergarten a year ago, but I could handle all of them now. Not to mention the fact that when I reached far back to my own Kindergarten and first grade years, my mind stubbornly insisted that they were practically indistinguishable. So I could totally handle Layla starting the first grade, no problem. But what I apparently could not handle was reality in the form of legit school paraphernalia, the chapter books, the white boards, the little desks (which, despite being in the throes of a nervous breakdown, struck me as the cutest things I'd ever seen in my life). It was so different from Kindergarten because it looked like, well, school.  After the classroom had been explored and teacher had been met, we milled around awhile and saw some friends and their moms from last year. I was struck by the fact that all of the moms seemed to be walking around in a daze. We tried to catch up and talk about our summers, but all we could manage to do was shake our heads in disbelief and mutter "The first grade. Can you believe it?" to each other. Or maybe we were all just muttering it to ourselves, now that I think about it. Either way, I shook my head and muttered just like everyone else, but I otherwise managed to power through. I felt victorious for overcoming my natural instinct to freak out (for a change), which is probably why I didn't see my "victory" for what it was: The calm before Hurricane Freak Out.

We had been home for about an hour when it hit me. I was in the kitchen and I happened to glance out the window to see a woman walking along, pushing a baby in a stroller. Truth be told, I probably look out that window and see moms with babies a hundred times a day and never notice, but you can bet that I noticed today. That was all it took for me to (for lack of a more eloquent way to say it) completely lose my shit, in the form of a hiccup-y, teary panic attack. I just kept shaking my head and muttering "The first grade. Can you believe it?" even though there were no other moms around to even pretend to be muttering to. Suddenly, every memory from my own first grade experience came rushing back. I remembered my first grade teacher, Mrs. Hyrne, who smiled a lot and had red hair which fascinated me (It's important to note that the year that I was in the first grade, "The Little Mermaid" came out, and because Mrs. Hyrne reminded me of Ariel, I was in awe of her and subsequently the biggest, brown-nosing, little teacher's pet ever.) I remember desks, and reading, and addition and subtraction, and the subtle loss of nap time. The point of all of this (random) reminiscing is that I finally realized that I was wrong, wrong, wrong about the first grade being Kindergarten 2.0 and that my memory had betrayed me entirely (which just goes to show that you probably shouldn't trust the memory of an almost-30-year old.) They were nothing alike. They couldn't have been more different and I suddenly remembered the first grade like it was yesterday. Wait, wasn't I actually just in the first grade yesterday? It certainly feels like it. And furthermore, if my wobbly memory can at least still manage to conjure up the name of my first grade teacher, how is it physically possible that I'm the parent of a first grader now? How??

I don't know. It just doesn't seem right.

Sometimes I feel like my like is accelerating out of control, that it's a life lived in perpetual fast-forward. But as much as that freaks me out, it's nothing compared to the feeling I get when I realize that my kid's lives are in fast-forward too. When my kids were babies, days seemed like years sometimes (particularly when those days involved projectile vomit), but now years feel like days. I look at them and wonder when and how they became actual people. It's thrilling and challenging and terrifying, all rolled into one. I know that kids grow up, that's the way that life works, it's supposed to happen. It's all just happens so fast. I swear, I am this close (THIS! CLOSE!) to turning into one of those crazy people who hover in the grocery store aisles telling anyone with a baby to enjoy it because it goes too fast, completely forgetting both the fact that you only realize how fast it goes in retrospect and people who do this are really annoying. At some point I'll probably incorporate pinching random cheeks and getting the stank eye from parents who (rightfully, probably) don't want me anywhere near their baby's cheeks, into my unsolicited "Enjoy it while you can" rant/routine. Great. Like I need to be any crazier than I already am.

Fast-forward to today, the first day of school. I did what I knew I needed to do: I pulled myself together and took my extremely excited kid (who had absolutely no idea how weepy and freaked out her mother actually was) to school. I took pictures, said hello to people, and told her she was going to have a great day, all while my fingers felt numb and my voice sounded detached from my body. I didn't cry or hover for too long (though Layla was ready for me to leave at least ten minutes before I actually left). Instead I came home, wrote this blog, freaked out in the privacy of my own home, and didn't even cry.

Well, okay. Maybe I cried a little bit.

I know that ultimately dragging my feet isn't going to do anything. My kids get older every day and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I just wish I had listened to those people who hovered in the aisles at the grocery store who told me to enjoy it all while it lasted because it goes by too fast.

Because it really does.