Is it Next Year...?

Last New Year's Day, Sam asked me "Is it 'next year'?" I stumbled around a brief history of time, wrapping up my convoluted pre-school version of calendar observance by agreeing, "So, ya: I guess it is 'next year'?" Sam replied, "Oh good! Cuz 'next year,' I get to go to Miss Kim's class!" Whoops. I hadn't thought of the academic calendar: January 1 is not 'next year' for an eager preschooler looking to join his friends every morning for the 9 am march down the hall to the kinder-room.

Then we blinked. Now it's mid-September — a whole other 'next year' is upon us and Sam is finally one of the "school age" kids in at Carleton Heights Elementary. He had his intake interview yesterday morning, and this Friday is his "staggered entry" day (can I be the only one who pictures inenebriated kids bouncing off the door frame à la Elliot in E.T.?). By next Monday, Sam will officially be part of the school system. As you can see by the huge smile, he's thrilled. Me? I'm already worried about standardized tests ...

It was a very pleasant introduction, though. Kim, Sam and I sat at one of the cute kiddie tables and Sam was asked to draw a picture of anything he liked while his teacher and I talked over the info sheet I'd filled in (loquaciously) over tea that morning. Sam happily drew an alien with a brown balloon and then was excused for some free play. His relieved expression at the sight of all the playthings lining the shelves under the windows was priceless. Despite my assurances to the contrary, he had obviously put a lot of stock into stories told by unnamed playmates that there was no fun to be had in real school (and Sam's never even heard of the standardized tests...)

It's a nice room, the big colourful space where Sam will trace letters and start drawing numbers and begin to recognize words. His teacher is experienced but still bright-eyed, firm but also a self-confessed hugger. I note, on the way out, that Sam will visit the library on Tuesdays and the gymnasium on Wednesdays and Fridays and that he'll have six field trips this year. And I wish, for a minute, that it was me signing up for the experience. That I'd be the one staging puppet shows, sprouting bean seeds on the sunny sill, and playing "sink or float" at the water table — reliving my own Eureka moments as though I didn't already know about displacement theory and Archimedes' reputed naked run down the streets of Syracuse.

But this will be an adventure of a different variety, following Sam through school and delighting in his new discoveries and the ever-broadening reaches of his world. It's hard to believe that it's already 'next year'. I distinctly remember Tracey and I laughing at the thought of our little lumps of newborns walking the hallways of a public school. Well, here they go....