melissarudy.com

Savannah boarding her first bus ride

The blog is dusty from weeks of neglect, but it’s been for a good cause. Last Monday, I finally finished the novel that’s consumed my entire summer. I feel like I’ve given birth to a fourth child who may or may not learn to walk and talk. So now, it’s time to put the book out of my head, start digging myself out of the mountain of “real work” I’m buried under, and start catching up on these installments, which have become a cheap form of therapy for me.

These late summer days have been far from lazy — although I’ve been wearing my laptop as a permanent accessory, I’ve managed to spare a few hours here and there for trips to Coney Island, picnics at the Nature Center, marshmallow roasting around the firepit, and backyard birthday parties.

This month brought the biggest milestone to date: on Wednesday, Savannah took the plunge into kindergarten. When the bus pulled up on the first day, a million times bigger and louder than I remembered it from my own grade-school years, Savannah wasn’t entirely convinced she was up for this school thing. As I stood on the curb, gripping my camera and blinking back tears, I have to admit there was a teeny, tiny part of me (okay, maybe a little bigger than that) that breathed a sigh of relief when she turned to me and demanded that I walk onto the bus with her.

Squeezing down the narrow little aisle, I saw everything through Savannah’s eyes: the sea of fifth-graders who suddenly seemed like giants, the Hannah Montana bags that made her Cinderella backpack seem glaringly pre-schoolish, the chunky wedge sandals that made her immediately glance down at the pink flip-flops that had seemed so grown-up just a few weeks ago. It was loud, hot, noisy, and terrifying (probably more so for me than for her).

Sav & her bustop buds (+ Abby)

So when Sav looked up at me, ignoring the kids who politely scooted over to offer a few inches of green vinyl for her to sit on, and said in a tiny, desperate voice, “Mommy, I want you to drive me” — well, let’s just say I couldn’t get my car keys out fast enough. I smiled during the entire 1.5-mile drive to Willowville Elementary, secure in the knowledge that my baby, at the ripe old age of five, still needed her mama…for a few more hours, anyway.

The next morning, joined by her troop of neighborhood kindergarten friends who had decided to give the bus a try, Savannah was suddenly transformed into a hair-flippin’, gum-crackin’ third-grader. She pranced down the street with Karley and Alia, miles ahead of slow old Mom, who was still fumbling with Claire’s stroller and yanking off Abby’s soggy Pull-Up in the middle of the front yard. By the time I caught up with them, they were already in line at the curb, complimenting each other on their clothes and calculating how many days it would be until they were first-graders. “NO!” I wanted to scream. “Let’s slow this train down!” Just yesterday, Savannah was crawling around in a diaper, clinging to my leg like a crab, and here she was vamping around like a preteen.

This time, Savannah climbed onto the bus like she’d been born to do it, not even venturing a glance back at Mom or Grandma. We stood on our tiptoes and craned our necks for a glimpse of our grown-up girl, snapping pictures like paparazzi, but she’d already plunked down in an aisle seat and turned to talk to her friends. When the bus lurched away, it took a sliver of my heart along with it. Walking back home, pushing baby Claire in her stroller and holding thumb-sucking Abby on my hip, the street seemed suddenly eerily quiet.

By the time we got home, though, the silence was starting to seem kind of nice. I couldn’t help but think of the day when all three of them would be climbing onto the bus and disappearing for the day, leaving me all alone…alone! Alone to knock out my writing assignments, catch up on laundry, run to the grocery, maybe indulge in a manicure or a massage…

Maybe this school thing isn’t such a bad idea after all.