The Beginning of the End

Today Ian turned five years old. I can't believe how old he is. I can't believe that he can start kindergarten. I kind of feel like this is the beginning of the end for me. It's fun being a mom of young kids--hard, tiring, sometimes mind numbing, but also fun. We can do whatever we want, whenever we want. The only schedule is the schedule we decide to have, and we can go on all sorts of adventures.

Then, when they start school, life just gets really busy. You have concerts and parent teacher conferences and sports and fundraisers....I'm not ready for all of that. I'm not ready for Ian to come home telling me the new words he's learned from the kids in his class. I'm definitely not ready for him to be disappointed and hurt by the things other kids do.

This is kind of ironic, because ever since my grandparents passed away (my grandma when I was pregnant with Ian and my grandpa when I was pregnant with Kellan), I realized that life is all about change. It's not supposed to be still. Everything is always changing, and one of the things we have to learn in this life is how to deal with change.  Part of life and change is death and dying. Part of change is sending your little boy to school and giving up part of the influence you have over him. It's easy (or easier), though, to give up your grandparents when they're old and uncomfortable, and all they want to do is rest. It's hard when you look at your little boy and think about all the things he hasn't learned yet, and all the ways he could be hurt. And--if I'm completely honest with myself--it's hard to come to grips with the reality that as his world expands, my importance diminishes a little.

Sorry for the downer. I love change! I do! Yay for change! I'm probably going to keep Ian back from kindergarten this year because I can't handle it!

Here's something funny he said the other day:

We were driving past a field where excavators and bulldozers were working, and Ian said, "Hey, mom! Do you think they're digging up pirate treasure or dinosaur bones?" He was super excited about the prospect of either one (who wouldn't be? those are both way more exciting than what they were doing.), that I just played along. I said definitely pirate treasure, because most of the dinosaur bones are in Montana or Utah. Which totally made sense to him.