Continued tradition

…our first-day-of-school tradition, that is, where I tape my mouth shut to keep from bossing our girls around. Except this year, today, I discovered I no longer need the tape. And the girls don’t need it anymore either as a reminder to figure it out—whatever it may be—on their own. We all just did it naturally.

We were calm. We were early. All three remembered to set their alarms. All three had their stuff together. Charlotte’s only complaint was that she was too early: “The bell won’t ring for 10 minutes? Darn, I like when I get here right when everyone’s going inside. Oh well.”

Then she added, “You know, Mom, at some point I’ll probably forget my backpack…and I’ll probably forget my lunch…and I’ll probably forget to set my alarm.” I smiled and listened quietly for her next thought, but none came. She stared into space for a few seconds and then jumped out of the car. “Bye!”

Those things have happened before and, yes, they might happen again. But no worries. She knows first hand that she can handle it.

Later I felt almost guilty when a colleague asked me how the morning went. He had that let’s-trade-horror-stories look on his face. “Um… it actually went really well, but there’s a whole story behind that.” “Really? What?” I thought, ok, you asked. “Well, I started wearing tape on my mouth for the first day of school a couple of years ago as a way to, you know, foster independence.” He raised his eyebrows and stared at me. “Huh. That’s different.” “Yeah, if you can force yourself to do it, it works pretty well.”

Works like a charm, in fact. Like…a…charm.

Explore posts in the same categories: Weeks following: Contributions