a long time coming.

On friday morning, for the first time in over 11 years – I will be alone.

All four of my beautiful babies will be “home”, but not at home. They will all be at school. For almost two hours – I will not have snacks to make or tv shows to find or polly pocket dolls to undress and redress.

And I thought i’d be SO EXCITED for this day.

Don’t get me wrong – I still am. And when I’m gloriously basking in a fully hot shower without having to keep jerking open the door going “what is that noise? who just threw a cat? Do i smell smoke???” – i am sure I will be ecstatic.

But a teeny litlte part of me is also kind of sad. I’ve done it. My mommy gig, at least as i’ve always known it, has officially ended. I’m a different mommy now. Oh I still have a little booty to keep diapered, and so many hungry mouths to keep fed. But i’ve done it. I successfully raised four little babies from wriggly screaming little beings into actual mini-humans, who go places without me and learn things that I am not teaching them.

and the thought of that makes me want to SOB endless tears!!!! At least my baby isn’t leaving me for very long, yet. 2.5 hours on mondays, wednesdays and fridays. By the time you factor in the bus time for the middle two, I really only have about 1 hour and 15 minutes of truly childless freedom. that’s a good start. I’ll take that. I can ease into full days of eating bon-bons on the couch watching daytime television. 😉
I am SO impressed with how quickly Kendall’s school team was able to make this transition happen. MANY phone calls back and forth took place, and I am sure even more chaos happened behind the scenes for them to be able to have Kendall ready to enter her assigned classroom on a moment’s notice!  MAJOR props to them! We were able to arrange for Kendall to go in today at the end of her class to meet her teacher, meet her friends, and we could introduce all her new friends to Kendall, as well as some of her accessories.

I sat down in the middle of a very full circle of anxious little precious faces, pulled Kendall into my lap, and told them:

“Kendall is SO excited to be here with you guys! she has been looking forward to school starting for a VERY VERY long time! When school started for you guys, she was still in the hospital, and she was pretty sick. But she’s doing a LOT better now. She has to keep this backpack on her all the time because it has her special food in it. See, she has these special tubies that the food goes into. (I asked Kendall if she wanted to show her friends her tubies, and she said she did. She lifted up her shirt to her belly level to show her GJ tube – and one little boy’s eyes got REALLY big, like he was going to go home and ask his mom if HE could have the super cool belly button like Kendall’s! Either that or he was figuring out how he could get it out of her….I couldn’t tell.) So these are her tubies, and that’s really all that is different about her. Other than that she is just a regular kid like you! she loves playdoh and Ariel the Little mermaid and playing house – and you know what? you can help Kendall! Wanna know how? Just play with her. don’t be scared of her tubies, because you will probably never ever see them. But be her friend. She LOVES friends. She wants to be your friend and I hope you all become great friends this year!”

And then I started tearing up so my little shpiel was done.

Kendall sat through (I use the term loosely – she has the attention span of a flea and was up for kleenex FOUR times in 7 minutes and no her nose isn’t running) the rest of story time with her class, and then school was done for the day! We spent nearly an hour then going over last minute details and having her teacher really sit and HEAR me about Kendall’s ins and outs and making sure everyone was on the same page as much as we can be without a truly up to date IEP in place! Really, cannot say enough good things about Kendall’s school team! (even if i did get my hand slapped for putting up a picture i took of kendall during school hours! I had no idea we couldn’t do that!!! So now i feel horrible. But i’ll get over it!) Kendall was like a mini-celebrity though with all of her former teachers and therapists coming by to give hugs and tell her welcome back! It was a nearly steady stream of people who love little miss who were all SO excited that she’s coming back!!! It just does a momma’s heart so good to hear how well cared for she is while she is away from me!

So for now we will try to get her all perked up tomorrow for a very exciting day on Friday. We will make sure she has had enough fluids and as much o2 support as she needs and make sure her medical bags are all packed for school. I will try not to think about the fact that the last time it was a friday and the 27th of a month, she was not long for this world. Instead we will turn the Friday the 27th memory into one of LIFE and living. i will celebrate all of the amazing progress she has pushed through and worked through to get to this point. I will cherish all that this moment will mean – for her to get to go to school. Her wish. the thought that’s gotten her through some painful and tedious rehabilitation. This moment will be both mundane and anything BUT mediocre. I don’t know if i can put it into words. Because some of the things we have endured and lived through this past year don’t have words. They are just….moments.

but yeah. basically this friday…it’s been a long time coming.

 

t.