Back To School: Pancakes, Pencils and Insomnia

“Enjoy the sleep now, because once he is born you will never again know what it is like to go to sleep not worrying.”

This is advice that one of my husband’s co-workers gave us when we were expecting our son- and today, I get it.

The day-to-day of this summer was long {like, REALLY – LONG}. For the first time, sibling rivalry reared its ugly head and so when the kids got bored, there was nothing more they enjoyed doing on their summer days than playing  their new found favorite game- “Who can piss each other off more and scream the loudest”. Leaving me wondering, who came up with the misleading idea of calling this summer “VACATION”. Vacation for who?

I confess.  I was counting down this day since June for quite a while.

So why is it that the last night- the night before the first day of school-  insomnia kicked in?
Up at 3am. Up at 4am…

I think I got 45 minutes of sleep all night. And what I realized? Despite how excited I was for this big day for my own piece of mind, and despite how excited he was to see his friends and to enjoy his “traditional” letter shaped pancakes in the morning-  I found I was nervous for him.

Which to me seemed completely acceptable when he was going into Kindergarten- but somehow seemed a little crazy to me being that he’s going into 1st grade with familiar faces and spaces.

But with 1st grade I found myself worrying about different things- like if our summer practicing was enough, if the other kids would be reading faster than him, if he would feel discouraged, if his closest friends would be in a different class….

This morning we followed the bus to school. I watched him walk in and felt nervous as I watched him navigate the corridor to find his new class.

And as I sit here, typing this I am clock watching – anxiously waiting for him to come home so I can be assured that all went ok.

*sigh*

This is totally putting a damper on Kool & The Gang’s “celebrate” that was playing on loop in my head all week.