Caps, Gowns and French Beans 5/22/2022

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

Everyone warned me it would happen. Not that I didn’t believe them. I really did. But once you experience it, it is somewhat amazing and more than certainly overwhelming.  The monumental event of which I speak is my daughter graduating kindergarten. Yes, that’s right I am going to cling tightly to the typical shameless mom stereotype and talk about my child hitting a milestone.  But what everyone who had walked this path warned me about was how quickly it would happen.  It seems like this school year has lasted all of 2 or 3 weeks tops and I am having a difficult time understanding just how it is that her first year of school is over. Everyone says it only gets faster as time goes on.  I am not entirely sure how that happens considering if that’s the case then she will be going to school one or two days per grade and be finishing college in a few months. That seems like exaggeration, but it doesn’t feel like it. Then again, the older I get the faster time flies.  I don’t know why this is the rule, but it certainly seems to be.  I’d like to talk to whoever made that rule. I can’t say that I fully approve.

I suppose one thing that makes this kindergarten graduation so terribly difficult to fathom is that I remember my own. No, there is not a great deal of detail but I do remember that there was a play we did in addition to the graduation.  Even if it wasn’t at graduation this is something I clearly remember from kindergarten so, the fact that my own child, the child I had at a relatively old age might I add, is now graduating from this same kindergarten is mind boggling at best and disconcertingly fast at worst.  I think I am remembering correctly that it was at graduation that we did a play based on the book Peter Rabbit.  My class was rather large and as you know there are a minimal number of characters in the book, so a very large portion of our class had to be vegetables in Farmer McGregor’s Garden. Yours truly ended up being a French Bean.  I very clearly remember several things about this. My first memory of being a French bean (and no, I am not entirely sure what a French bean is) is that I was very bitter in my young mind that I was not a carrot.  There were carrots, radishes, French beans and…perhaps something else I don’t remember exactly, but I remember finding it rather loathsome to be a bean when I very seriously wanted to be a carrot. I cannot say why. Perhaps I found it more rabbit story appropriate, but I know I didn’t care for it at all. A thing I think of looking back on this moment is that I have to wonder how complicated it was for my mother to find long green t-shirt and green tights for me to wear as my costume. Bless her.  I also clearly remember my one line in the play that I had to repeat. Yes, that’s right, the vegetables had lines.  I had to say, ahem, “I’m a little French bean. Please don’t eat me!”  I know, that is some quality drama.  This is all so clear in my mind.  How was that so many decades ago?

I can clearly remember many aspects of my kindergarten year. I look back on them now and compare them to my daughter’s experiences. I too had separation anxiety in the beginning.  Unfortunately, I had it in the EXACT same way that my daughter had it. See, when I get nervous about something my stomach is the part of my body that has the most significant response. Sadly, my daughter inherited this trait. I remember my mother taking me to school and (for some reason I don’t remember this part of it though I do remember being very, VERY upset) I would suffer from anxious stomach and well, my mom would have to clean it up. She told me she would clean my mess and go home and cry.  I had to do the same for my own daughter. There is nothing like holding up the drop-off line whilst trying to remove as much of the partially digested pancakes from your child as you could can then insisting that she must go on to class.  Oh, that was so awful. To send your child off after a reaction that you could so fully relate to was agonizing.  I must say the huge respect I had for my mother was magnified exponentially after going through this. We drove to school that first week or so with a full change of clothes and a bowl, just in case.  Interestingly, my daughter did admit at one point that she was going to try to wait to revisit her breakfast until she got to school as she seemed to have learned that such things got you immediately sent home. I don’t think she meant to share that strategy out loud.  The girl is far too clever for her own good. Once she figured out that she was going to school and staying at school regardless of her stomach’s disagreement, the nervous stomach subsided, thank the Lord.  Those first few weeks with her nerves were not pleasant. You can actually go back and look at the blogs from the time and gather as much.  But this is all old news now.

Here we are and my baby, my one and only (as I said I had her at a rather old age as far as having kids go, hence it isn’t a road I will be traveling again) is finishing her first year of school.  This coming week she will wear a cap and gown and mark a huge achievement in her little lifespan.  And truly, she has come very far in this year. She has learned to manage the daydreaming she also inherited from her mother. She has faced the challenge of going away from family every day. She has tackled her first taste of independence.  I don’t know if I should be excited or sad.  I suppose both are in order.  She is my only so I will get see my child’s kindergarten graduation only once and I am learning that is the deepest sorrow and the greatest thrill simultaneously.  I suppose I must hold on loosely. The world and all its adventures await.