Growing Pains

As a very wise person once put it: having kids is like having your heart walk around outside your body. 

I have felt it time and time again when they fall and scrap a knee or are sick and don’t feel well. Their pain is my pain. But yesterday it occurred to me that in Kindergarten (and the years to come) they will experience a different kind of pain that I’m not not ready to experience. 

They got off the bus yesterday, talking simultaneously about how great their days were. What they liked, what they didn’t. How much (or how little) of their lunches they ate. How they got to play at recess with each other despite being in different classrooms. Grace said the P.E. teacher was super nice, but the games they played were “a little boring.” Claire told me her headband was hurting her at rest time, but she didn’t want to move to take it off because she was afraid her frog would get bumped from green to yellow. (Maybe I should get some frogs for our house.) 

They both had great second days, but then Claire told me a story from their bus ride home. 

“Mom, these girls LIED to us on the bus!” 

“What’d they say?”

“They said when no one is looking, they turn into planes and cars. But they were LYING!” 

I held back my smile. I asked her how she knew they were lying. She said they had the “lying look.” 

Which tells me they were probably smiling or giggling at this joke they were playing on a couple of rookie Kindergarteners. And although this is all very harmless, it did get me thinking about how there will be times when it isn’t harmless. Times when they get laughed at or teased. And I’m soooo not ready for that kind of pain. 

In the meantime, though, I told Claire to try joking back with them. She liked that idea and decided she’s going to tell those big girls that when no one is looking, she turns into a puppy. And considering she spends most of home time “being a puppy,” I think she’ll nail that joke.