Sending the Kids Back to School

School’s back in session for the Wick kids.

And not a moment too soon.

When we first got word last month that La Grange would in fact be starting in-school instruction my wife and I literally highfived (I am not making this up).

We were that excited.

Yes, we are among those sending our kids back to the classroom. I certainly understand anyone who isn’t ready to send their kids back, but for us it’s the right decision.

Make no mistake, we love our kids and have treasured the extra time we’ve gotten to spend with them amidst the pandemic precautions of the last five months, 21 days, five hours and (checks watch) 13 minutes.

But the thing is, my wife and I have failed miserably at home schooling.

This conclusion smacked us in the face one recent evening before school resumed as we sat out on the porch chatting with our five-year-old who was poised to begin kindergarten this fall.

One of us asked him to recite the alphabet – something he has been easily able to do for more than a year now.

He got through the letter ‘G’ before hitting a roadblock.

And that roadblock persistent for the next several days even as we worked with him.

That darn letter ‘H’ remained elusive to him, which short-circuits the entire alphabet song.

I am happy to report that, prior to the resumption of class last week that our son re-learned the entire alphabet and was ready to proudly march into his kindergarten class.

And he did so last Thursday, not even looking back as he walked into the school building.

My wife burst into tears.

He was ready. We were not.

Our youngest has started kindergarten, and so we’ve hit yet another milestone in parenting.

We’ll hit another next year, when our oldest becomes a senior.

We’ve had a lot of first days of school.

I have two distinct memories of my own first day of school, 36 years ago. While my mom and I waited in line to enter Altha Keith’s kindergarten classroom at Hermes Elementary for the first time, one of my classmate’s lunch box fell open, and all the contents spilled out on the sidewalk.

It was a little glimpse into the world of another student. Among the contents was what appeared to be a bunch of prunes wrapped in saran wrap. Exactly what kind of people was I embarking on this educational journey with?

I had never been in daycare or preschool, probably never had a real conversation with a kid outside my immediate family in my life before I started kindergarten.

And for that matter didn’t have a real conversation with a kid outside my immediate family for a few months after I started kindergarten either.

I was kinda quiet.

The other memory I have is of all of us sitting in our desks after the parents had left. Lots of kids were crying out load. My eyes got watery, but I started blinking a lot, not letting myself shed an actual tear.

Fast forward 30 years and I remember clearly back in 2009 when our oldest started kindergarten, we walked her onto the same campus I had gone to school at, and lingered a little extra long in a classroom that’s now been demolished. We had just moved to La Grange a few months prior, Ella didn’t know any other kids and hadn’t even been in daycare for a couple of years – instead spending lots of pre-kindergarten days under desks in newspaper newsrooms.

My wife and I were so worried about her that we drove over to the school during her recess time and parked to secretly watch her during playbreak that first day from our car.

She seemed fine, and we felt silly for worrying so much.

We all, as parents, want the best for our kids, so we worry and hope we are making the right decisions for them. Then we second guess those decisions, but more often than not things turn out fine.

These last few days, all four of the Wick kids have come home exhausted from school, but so far have all consented to keep returning every day (not that they have a choice).

Things are different for them. They are wearing masks and eating their lunch in their classrooms. Early science lessons have focused, not surprisingly, on germs. They all know some classmates who have not returned to campus.

But day by day, things are more back to normal than they have been in a long time.