Kindergarten Days

This photo is already outdated. Dodger's hair is twice as long now as it was then. And we've cut it, twice. We took this picture just before we boarded Minnie Driver, our van for Lipscomb Elementary School sometime at the end of August. It's all a blur because I cried the first week - no, the first month. But Dodger is in good hands, the best in fact. Mrs G. (Laurie Gross) told Dodger on the first day that she loved him and I knew it was a relationship meant to last. She is everything and more than I could ever dream of in a teacher. We are on the same page about loving and teaching and nurturing children and she does a great job at bringing the best out of these kiddos. But the parties, man. They are over the top. I'm not one to complain but come Dodger's birthday, he's gathering some pretty lofty expectations for what parites are. Maybe if it doesn't rain we'll do the deal here. I'll make the cake. And we have a pinata that we bought a year ago and forgot to use around Easter. The kids will never know... shhh. It needs work, but here's what I wrote one day after dropping Dodger off at class.

THE RED BALLOON

(my emotional letting go of Dodger into Kindergarten)

Red

Not the square, flat color of a brick

Not the shell of a ladybug, that is more orange than red anyway

A bright, round candy-apple red

The kind of red that makes your eyes smile when you see it

The red that looks so good you want to eat it

Balloon

Not the kind you blow up yourself, wearing out your cheeks and your

Lungs

Not one from the grocery store that looses all its air and pops on the

Way home

A carefree, weightless balloon floating in the sunny breezy weather

The only way to keep it with you is to hold on tight

Red

How I'm feeling

Gravel dusting my shoes, everything grey at the carnival, except...

The reddest shiniest candied apple

The kind you don't care to spend two dollars for

Hardly waiting to take the first bite

Getting sticky on my face

Sticky on my fingers

But I'm no way ready to clean up

(Unless licking counts)

Balloon

Cheery cherry balloons lined up near the stone steps

Attached to poles, these weightless fliers

All those balloons who can't stand still

They're blowing back and forth, back and forth in the breeze

I wanted to tell them they didn't need the poles

They could fly around the whole world if they wanted to

But would they come back to me?

A Red Balloon

It caught my eye - It made me think

I stopped my step - I couldn't blink

Even though I always walk down the stone steps

I closed my eyes and imagined that red feeling

The crisp autumn air

A candy apple in one hand and a red balloon in the other

I took a step

I headed away from the school and toward the car

I placed both hands on the apple

Something slipped through my hand

I took a bite with sticky on my fingers

Just then, the red balloon floated

Happy and carefree

I held on to my apple and I set the balloon free