Well, it's official: Addie has graduated from pre-school. Oh, the pomp, the circumstance! Briarwood pulled out all the stops for the graduation ceremony... right down to caps, gowns, music, entrances, songs, poems, announcements. Kleenex boxes were passed around. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.
There Addie stood, hair freshly cut the night before at Chandler Salon (translation: our bathroom... I've become quite the home hairstylist), looking impossibly handsome and confident as he marched in to the swelling music. He filed in to his seat, a proud and self-conscious smile playing on his lips as he surrepticiously glanced at me. Me, with my video camera and my tear-stained cheeks. I've never seen him so proud. He was placed front and center, and we soon discovered why; every song they sang, every announcement they made, he spoke clearly and without hesitation. He knew every word of the Pledge of Allegiance. He sang "God Bless America" and "United We Stand" with flair. My favorite selection was a rewritten version of "New York, New York", aptly re-titled "Kindergarten" ("If we can make it there, we'll make it anywhere, so here we come, Kin-der-gar-tennnnnnn!") complete with the required kick-line and big arm finish. Addie didn't miss a beat. The choreographer in me was not disappointed.
I watched my boy, this kid named Addie who has grown before my eyes... from the beginning, so very much his own person. Verbal and expressive at eight months; by eighteen months, speaking full sentences with the maturity of some five-year-olds. Addie, whose huge pools of blue eyes were keenly observant from the moment he was born, and whose eyes continue to see the world in all its miracles. I am honored to get a glimpse of the world through those eyes. They never fail to notice a full moon or the first twinkling star, a homeless man, a pretty girl, a scary billboard, a perfect grey morning. They fiercely protect his baby brother, they notice anytime something too small or dangerous gets in his hands. They burst with excitement. They flash with anger. They fill with tears that he tries so hard to hold back. They break my heart. I fall into them when they look at me with love and devotion; I never want to leave them. Too often, I let him stay up late, just so we have our famous "snuggle time", and those beautiful, deep eyes are all mine... just for a little while.
It does seem as if five and a half years has passed; I can't exactly say it has gone by in a flash, because I cannot imagine a moment when Addie wasn't a part of my life. But I also recognize that I will blink and he will be ten, blink again, fifteen, blink again... I cannot even bear to think how empty I will feel when he is not stumbling into the family room to greet me each morning. Sometimes I catch a glimpse of Addie at the breakfast table, his long, spindly legs dangling from the chair as he slurps his Cheerios, and I wonder when it was that my child got so impossibly LONG. When did his feet get so big? Perhaps all this is made more pronounced by the fact that he's so skinny... now more so than ever because of all his recent illnesses. But the lack of meat on his bones makes him seem even more lanky, like a piece of taffy stretched before my eyes. I hold him, and he is all arms and legs. He still weighs so little (35 pounds!) that I can easily hoist him up and cradle him, and I simply rejoice in the feeling of this amazing child. It will not be long before he will stop asking me to hold him. A few years after that, he'll even request that I don't. So I drink it all in now. I kiss and hug and try to bottle the feeling of these young cheeks, so soft and sweet, before they give way to pimples and roughness and resistance.
I see how eager Addie always is to share his accomplishments, his emotions, his everything... with me and with his father, with all those he loves. There are times when the last thing I want to do is hear how many Droids he has won in his Wii Star Wars game. I do not care in the least about Droids. But God, he wants me to know, and that is reason enough for me to drop whatever I'm doing to become his rapt audience.
I relish his profound communication skills, and watch his effect on others. He has an uncanny ability to draw people in and captivate them. He considers many of my friends his own best friends, insisting that they are invited to his birthday parties and special events. He cares deeply about his relationships. He strikes up conversations at Target with people in line ahead of us. He shows genuine interest in their lives and shares his own life with abandon. Every once in a while, he will run into someone with no interest in connecting. It throws him for a loop every time. I can feel his heart sink, as surely as if it was my own.
Now, Addie moves onto the next milestone... forging his way through the trials and trevails of elementary school. I know I have to let him find his own way. He did it with aplomb in pre-school. He'll do it again. I wish I could shield him from any hurt. I know I cannot.
But I will tell you now that if any kid ever bullies him, that bully is TOAST.
In a couple of months, my firstborn son will start Kindergarten. He's ready. I may not be, but he is. The passing of time is never experienced more acutely than through the world of your children; these hallmarks, these landmarks, these moments, captured- and gone. My heart tries to hold on, but I cannot stop the growing up. So off he'll go, unleashing his spirit on a new set of humans. I hope they take care of him. I hope he takes care of himself. I have a feeling he will.
As the song said... if he can make it there, he'll make it anywhere.
