In a Month...

In a month I'm going to watch you wake up in the usual way, eat your breakfast in the usual way, buckle up in the car in the usual way. But that's where normal ends and down the rabbit hole we go. You will be starting kindergarten. A garden of/for children. Little cabbages and carrots, squash and tomatoes all in pretty little rows and fields. You will not be a carrot because you do not have flaming red hair like I did going into K. You will not be a squash, even though they do have loverly blooms. No, you'll be a beautiful stalk of corn. Or maybe an heirloom tomato. The corn, well, because you are already so tall for your age, your hair is always waving madly about your face, and you blow about in the wind but your roots are always firmly planted, albeit stubbornly, in the dark earth.
I can't wait for you to experience the smells and sights and sounds of your new school. Chalk dust, freshly waxed floors, cafeteria food, brand-new bookbag/lunchbag plastic smell...Lockers, school libraries, gymnasium floors, the cacophony of 400 or so little voices all clamoring at once...
Although I know there will be all these new and wonderful things for you to explore and experience and interpret and file away in your brain for dinner time conversation, I worry. I think, will you cry? Will you like your teacher? Will you be challenged academically and socially and mentally? Will the kids be nice? Will you make friends? Will I just keep worrying every day until they put that graduation cap on your head? Or will you do exactly as I know you will...
Yes, something more like that. Your head will spin, your eyes will light up, your feelings and thoughts will find their voice, your hand will find anothers to hold, and you will be fine. More than fine, actually. You will thrive...A little water, a little sunlight, lots of tender love and attention from mom and dad, teachers and friends, and you will grow so tall and so healthy and so fruitful. I can't wait.
Well, maybe another month...