EnRICHment

On the way to school today, the group of parents I was with started talking about the new enrichment programs the school is offering.  And BOY OH BOY are people excited!  I mean - who wouldn't want to jump at Programming for Girls and Lego Robotics for Kindergarters? Or Art-Using-Science and the ever popular Yoga-to-Destress-your-Elementary-Grade-Schooler?

I mean, I saw that neon yellow flyer among the three hundred sheets of paper you guys brought home that first day, and thought, "Wow. This is cool. We should sign them up." 

So, after filling out the first 299 sheets of paper to return to school tomorrow, I finally got around to looking up the enrichment classes and quickly realized that in order for you two to be enriched, we must first be RICH!

[insert big Sigh].   Why does everything have to cost so much stinking money? 

I get that the teachers should get paid.  And I WANT to pay these enrichment teachers.  But after piano and soccer and swimming and AWANAS uniforms and books... 
And I know the beginning of every school year is like this ... I feel like we just fork over money for everything. 

And even though I'm in sticker shock about the money - it's also the TIME!  Where would we get the time to do all of this?  And we aren't the only ones with multiple kids, so (let me get my calculations straight...) this could be an easy 5-7 days of the week out and about after school and possibly $500 every few months for Enrichment activities. 

I realize that the time or money may not be anything to many people.  But for us, it is. 
We aren't poor, yet we most definitely aren't "rich."   Apparently, affluence is all relative.   (Maybe if you took Physics-for-Five-year-olds enrichment, you'll understand relativity).    It seems that technically, we are affluent - or at least in the "Upper middle class" spectrum in America based on our age and income. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affluence_in_the_United_States 
The unfortunate part of this issue is that, because we live in a city where your house costs roughly half of your monthly income, even though we make decent money, living within our means means that things are still a bit.  

I don't want to give the impression of whining.  Or that we don't manage our money well.  It's just that we don't make decisions regarding money lightly.  There is only so much of it to go around.

So as much as I'd like to sign you up for Travel-the-World-through-a-Scavenger-Hunt and have you learn Chinese-for-Children ...   we aren't going to do it. 

And it's hard because it's not that we can't afford it - but that we are choosing not to send you.  And in this area, I feel like I'm a pariah because I say things like that. 

More than not wanting to shell out the money - I want your time.  I want to make your life enriched by the satisfaction you'll have knowing you can be safe and peaceful in your own skin, that you don't have to be DOING and GOING and STIMULATED every waking minute. 

Being at home and having time for homework, family dinners, and PLENTY OF SLEEP is how I'm going to enrich your lives.  Giving you my time to talk and play and simply BE together is going to have to be enough.  

You are more than the classes you take, and more than the things you do.  
I am more than the classes my kids take, and I am more than the things that they do.

For you, I want you to know that being enriched has more to do with the enlightening knowledge that your life is RICH just because you are in it. 

Kindergarten Aches

My heart is off balance.  

You'd think I'd be elated!  TWO of you in school!   I mean, how many times have I said "If I knew then what I know now ... how EASY it is to take just ONE kid somewhere..." ?  

And here I am.   With one kid again.    

You two started school today and I'm lost.  I did some cleaning, I ate some nutella.  I drank an extra cup of coffee.  I returned something to the mall that I bought in FEBRUARY (7 months ago).  

Maybe it's because we just got back from the beach. (Favorite place on earth).  
Maybe it's because for six years I've had at least two children almost constantly by my side. 
Maybe it's because I was so happy how I quickly figured out that balancing three again when summer started was not easy, but doable - and now with only one, I'm off balance again and that effort is making my heart achy. 

I know I'll find a new normal soon.  But you two were so little and so young for so long.  And I was the mother with little kids for SO long.  And I know I still have one at home.  But you guys are like my work.  My art.  My purpose.  

But this is Life, yes?    My one constant is Change.  

This motherhood thing isn't easy.  Even when your two oldest kids are in school and you have the freedom to sit at the computer and write about your feelings  -  it's not easy.   

I don't want to forget that I yelled at you this summer.  I was frustrated and our house was NEVER clean or picked up or even remotely close to perfect.   I sent you outside, to your rooms, and just AWAY from me.  I was not the perfectly patient loving-every-minute-of-you-all-hanging-all-over-me mom.  For the next nine months I will only have to carry ONE drink and ONE snack and deal with ONE mouth and only TWO hands.  

But I will still miss both of you.   I'll miss your company and your creativity.  Your voices and your hearts nearby.  

I don't want you to think (and I don't want to think) that I'll look back on these years and not realize or acknowledge the frustrations and the tiredness.   I will not miss your fighting, whining, anger and crying. 

   To me, this is one of the great mysteries about life:  How the good and the bad of raising children go hand in hand and somehow it doesn't balance into nothing, but it adds up and equals something great.    My children are no longer babies.   And maybe more than anything, I'm not so sad about you starting school as that I'm sad about this chapter of my life being over.   
Funny thing is, I don't want it back!   I just want to tell you how my heart misses you.  That each new phase/chapter/season's transition time isn't easy for me.   And just as we go to a memorial to remember,  I wanted to write this so you know that this year, school starting was hard for me.  
Before long, I'm sure we'll have it all figured out.  But until then, I may hold your hand a little longer, squeeze you a little tighter, and kiss you a little more often.   

xo,
mom