I'm Verklempt

Pre-school graduation.

My 4-year-old graduates from pre-K tomorrow. For all the big talk I do about not getting too sappy about childhood, all I really want to do is cry big, giant tears because my little boy is growing up. Kindergarten is next, and with it, real childhood—not toddlerhood—on the horizon.

Yesterday, he snuck into my bed at 5 a.m., and while the hour was loathsome, his smell was divine. In the morning, he has this sweet-and-sour scent only a mother could love. If I could, I’d bottle it and wear it as perfume, even though everyone already compliments my actual scent, African Leather. (Don’t judge the cost. A whole bottle lasts a year.)

Pre-K graduation is commemorated with a luau, because how else would you celebrate? I can’t wait to see him in a lei and clap for his first full year in a real classroom. He learned to write me notes this year. He crumples them up and hides them in my desk. I do throw a lot of them away because they’re mostly scribbles, but I love them.

Over the weekend, my two little guys played in one of those tiny motorized cars. Honestly, I’m shocked millennial parents haven’t canceled them yet. I watched them cruise around the cul-de-sac at their grandparents’ house. It felt like a preview of what’s to come—my kids getting older, the space between us widening just a little. Still not huge. Five is not fifteen, but there was a pang.

One thing I know for sure: I will forever be powerless to the backs of their two little heads.

As my grandma would say, I’m verklempt.