Doing Family Time

This first week of school reminds me how insular families can be. When I was single in the mid-1990s and new to Washington, I remember when a mom barked at me to move away from a monument where I was trying to read the inscription. Her family, I was told, needed a photo, but the subtext was that the mere fact of being a family trumped any experience I could possibly have. Standing to the side of that monument waiting for the shutter to click, I promised myself that if I ever had a family of my own, I would be inclusive.

But it turns out that that insularity happens all on its own. Once your kids are in school--sooner if you actually try to keep your tots on a schedule--week nights find you and your family, at home, alone. There in the familial bosom, there are few dinners out, even fewer friends invited in, and nary a phone call answered or returned during the witching hours from 6:00 to 9:00 when baths must be given, books read, and bedtime enforced. Certainly when you're falling in love with your future mate no one tells you that raising kids, especially that forced march from food prep to night lights on, is the marital equivalent of driving through Kansas, where, as my father says, there's nothing to see but miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. Anyone can be enraptured at the sight of the Grand Canyon. Now I know that the real trick is to enjoy the cornfields. 

Head First

I woke up at 6:42 this morning to my son, Sam, shouting, "I'm a first-grader!" Then he got dressed and ate breakfast so fast, it was one of those rare mornings--in fact it's never happened at our house before--that we were ready for the day so early we didn't know what to do with ourselves. But I admit that while I shared some of Sam's exuberance over the first day of first grade, there's that other side of me that's not quite ready for it to happen. And for a long time, while I was trying to get pregnant with the baby who would become Sam--and then throughout his earlier milestones--the first time he ate an olive (6 mos.); the first time he erased one of my stories on the computer (20 mos.); the first time he cheered for the Red Sox (21 mos.)--the idea of his ever reaching first grade seemed as far-fetched as digging to China. But here we are.

So why is this moment so bittersweet? I know that starting first grade is not in the same league as, say, buying your first heavy-metal CD or bringing your first girlfriend home to spend the night, but it comes with those intimations. If first grade got here so quickly, can Sam's first apartment, laden with Red Sox paraphernalia, be far away? 

And there is something truly grown up about first grade. Unlike kindergarten, with naps and a pretend kitchen in the housekeeping corner, this is the formal start of that 15-year progression through what my friend Jay has dubbed the education-industrial complex, whereby life is ordered around the school year. Memory doesn't kick in in first grade, but it's close. While you might have the odd recollection from when you were four, you tend to catalog what happens by whether you were in first grade or fourth or twelfth. Maybe that's why I have such a snapshot in my mind of my own first day of school--spindly legs sticking out from a too-short dress with a ladybug applique and, on top, a too-short Pixie haircut. 

Time moves too damn fast. It outpaces consciousness in much the same way that light outpaces sound. Arriving home from vacation last night to a yard of dead plants, stacks of mail, and suitcases filled with dirty clothes, there were a few seconds when I forgot that I was 48 and living in my own townhouse with a husband, two kids, and a dog. In that short span, I felt relieved that my mom would take care of the mess. That's when I remembered, Oh, I'm the mom.