Graduation Day

Quite early this morning, while Maisie and Phoebe snored softly in their beds, Jack and I snuggled up together on the couch and ate our cereal. Normally we sit at the table, but it was so covered in paraphernalia that I bent the rules...just this once. My boy and I sat with bunny rugs on our knees and watched Sunrise and for one little moment I remembered what it was like when it was just he and I. Being Number One, Jack and I spent a year and a half almost exclusively together before Phoebalina came along, and it feels like such a long time ago. Not only is the house fuller and busier than ever (and more loving, and we wouldn't change a thing!!), but Jack and I don't get much one-on-one time anymore. I guess that's what happens when you have a breastfed baby sister.

Jack was up early this morning to get ready for his last day at kinder - a milestone in anybody's books. His graduation ceremony was not until lunchtime, but he was going early with Daddy to prepare. As he cuddled right in next to me this morning, I tried to burn every moment in my memory. I must admit, silly as it seems, leaving kinder today makes me feel as though a part of my baby will be lost forever. I suppose I was worried that after the "ceremony", he wouldn't want to cuddle me on the couch, or do any of the cute little things that mark him still as a small boy. Logically I know that this is nonsense, that one day cannot make such a significant difference. But today marked a watershed moment in my son's life, and my mothering instincts had sat up, pricked their ears, and twitched their noses. There was change on the horizon.

So the boys left for kinder, and the girls continued on with a normal morning...making breakfast, picking breakfast up off the floor, cleaning up the breakfast before Ernie or the ants got to it, putting on loads of washing, washing dishes, colouring in, letting cups of tea go cold while retrieving unsafe objects from Maisie's mitts...and before I knew it, we were clean and dressed and off to kinder to see our boy graduate.

The kinder kids had decorated the outside area for the ceremony, but of course as soon as the parents began arriving the rain blew in and we all scarpered inside. The kinder graduands had donned paper graduation caps on  their heads, and one by one they traipsed in to collect their certificates from their teacher. Some walked beautifully and stood still whilst adoring parents took photos, others skipped straight to their mums and sat down on the mat without collecting their certificate! Jack came in holding Phoebe's hand, pulled his hat off his head and arranged his face in an expression I know well. It was his "There's a lot of people in here and that makes me nervous so I'll act silly" face, which makes him look completely goofy. Is it wrong of me to be relieved that he wasn't cool and calm and completely grown-up?

We finally managed to get some lovely photos of the three kids together, complete with Jack's mortar board. After a sausage sizzle and some other treats, we left our boy to play for the rest of the afternoon and took the girls home. When Jack arrived home later this afternoon, he told me he had given his teachers a special hug and wished them a merry Christmas. He realised that today was his last day as a kinder boy, and that very soon he would be a Preppy. And I realised that even though he was grown-up enough to thank his teachers properly, he was still my baby. As I watched him today standing in the straggly line of kindergarteners, pulling on their t-shirts, spinning around on the spot, walking randomly around or calling out to their parents, I saw that none of them were in danger of being truly grown-up. And I could clearly see etched in the face of my little man, the face that I had stared at on the morning he was born. The beautiful face of my first-born son, who made me a Mummy for the first time, whom I think will always be my baby, no matter how many birthdays he celebrates. Cross your fingers the quiet cuddles on the couch persist for a little while longer yet. I think I need them more than he does!