Milestones

     "Liam started Kindergarten already? Did you cry?"  No.  No, I did not.  And I didn't think I would either.  For whatever reason, I'm just not emotional about these milestones.  No, that's completely wrong.  I am emotional but shedding tears isn't the right emotion for me.
     First off, I have proof that I am emotional.  I cried at the end of The Help, The Time Traveller's Wife, Life As We Know It and I cried buckets when I watched Jersey Girl.  I also cry when there's just too much to handle in life, when my "cup runneth over" if you will.  And just for the record, I cried relentlessly for a week after my pet ferret died unexpectedly.
     So why am I not emotional about Liam into Kindergarten. Hmmm... maybe it's not a lack of emotion but rather a difference in emotion.  I've never been one to be sad at big occasions.  I don't think I cried at graduation, but I'm pretty sure my stomach did a flip and I got goosebumps.  Moments like those are part of life. Rather than being sad about college being over, why not get excited about what comes next?  I'm not saying I wasn't sad to see my friends go and to abandon the life of less responsibility (who am I kidding, I was more responsible in college than most 30 year olds are living on their own).  I was sad to close that chapter but like all chapters that came before it and after, I knew it was just part of life and that the next experience was just around the corner.  Hmmm... maybe if I knew how mundane everyday life can possibly get at times, I would have been more sad!  And probably if I knew the gravity of work in a real world classroom (versus student teaching and always having that experienced teacher to catch you if you fall or grade those papers you forgot on your desk)
I would have longed to stay put in the world of essays, projects and mid-terms.  I know at all of these major milestones: graduation, wedding, baby shower,... I have been excited and nervous.  I know when I got my own classroom I was scared.  But sadness, no.  I didn't cry at my wedding and I probably won't cry at Liam's (well, maybe I will cry at Liam's wedding). 
     Here's the other side of it.  I have happy memories of the boys as babies but do I wish they were still babies?  Not really.  I think if Liam became a baby again- even if it was just for a day- I'd go crazy trying to talk to him about the scientific principals of the water cycle and not quite getting why he wasn't responding.  That might not make sense.  My point is that I'm not willing to turn back the clock (not that I even could if I wanted to) when we've got so much going right now.  With each year, month, week comes a new set of skills that the boys learn, more shared experiences, more growth.  So am I sad that Liam is going into Kindergarten?  Am I crying thinking about taking him home from the hospital? No, I'm smiling because I wouldn't trade this kid, right now for anyone else in the universe.
     So what emotions am I feeling?  I'm happy and I've got that nervous excitement thing going too.  Bill could tell you, it might seem that I waited until the last minute to do our clothing shopping (mid-August) but it was well contemplated before then.  Perhaps I even perseverated on it a bit.  And when we finally did get to go school supply shopping (had to wait for the list) and they were all out of Transformer take home folders, I actually looked in four more stores just to find one (perseverate much?) but to no avail. So there's clearly some amount of nervous energy going on; it's just not sadness.  Can I tell you how hilarious it was shopping with Liam for clothes?  When he insisted on buying the button up shirt with striped tie (not a clip-on mind you, it's a real tie with stripes and skulls), I just about fell in love with him ten times over.  Now I'm leaving Joshua out.  If I got sad when he turned 2 because he wasn't a baby anymore, than I might have missed out on his first actual real "I love you".  There's something special about having that amazing independent kid- acting totally bazonkers and then running up to you and giving you a kiss out of the blue and saying, "I love you". Babies don't do that- they utterly and completely depend on you and melt into you, which I do admit is terrific, but they can't say "I love you" yet. 
     I love looking at my kids baby photos in all of our photobooks (yeah, I'm too lazy to do scrapbooking, but with photobooks, who needs it anyway?).  I love looking at their cute faces and seeing how much they've changed.  I'm a sucker for hand-print crafts.  I love to see how little they were and now they're big.  A few years back in school I had my kids do a measurement project comparing their sizes at birth to current sizes and I do admit, I teared up a little looking at their projects.  But would I want to teach 20 babies instead of those 20 nine year olds?  Not a chance!    

     In my head as I look through our family photobooks, it's like I've got shelves full of future photobooks.  I see their soccer games (with Bill's luck, they'll want to play soccer instead of baseball); the school celebrations; the Kindergarten graduation; the concerts and more.  I see the photobook filled with Christmases and Halloweens and the trips to the farm for the next 10 years...  Hmmm... in 10 years I suppose they won't want to go the farm anymore and then they will probably get mad at me for taking them to the farm every year when they could be at the mall with their friends.  I've heard that teenagers don't cuddle up to their parents either and that they don't usually say "I love you".  Okay, so maybe for a few short years I might get a little teary eyed reminiscing about these days.  Maybe I just haven't gotten sad because I know Liam won't change too much today.  Maybe I'm not taking into account teenage hormones... So I guess if I'm going to ever cry over a milestone it will be the one where Liam tells me he wants to take the car and go school shopping on his own this year, or when Joshua tells me he doesn't want to give me a kiss good-bye in the car when I drop him off at school.  Yeah, that might make me cry.