Preschool Mugshots and the Fall of a Superhero

It's a long haul, education. Especially for those who decide to make a career of it. (I'm not pointing any fingers, but if I were, they would be at me). Yesterday, a coworker showed me pictures of her daughter dressed up in a pretty blue dress with a big-girl smile on her face. She was going to preschool and her excitement shone on her little face from the cell phone I was looking at.

Sammy also is entering her last year of preschool with the same beaming smile of a little girl trying to be a big kid like her older brothers. Little do they know.

Sarahmay and her bestie and cousin, Forrest 

Just yesterday, I sat in a chair that was too small for me while my daughter read one of her princess books to a couple of plush toys, who were tucked into a doll's bed, and me. I played the part of the child receiving the story, and from her imagination and her knowledge of the story, she told the key moments of the plot well in her sing-song voice trying to sound so grown up.

(Forest Fire) and (Sarah-Mayhem). I'm pretty sure that these two are going to be trouble. 

I do worry. As a parent, it is my job to worry. I wonder how education will change them, how it will mold them into beings that I just might not recognize. I worry about persuasive arguments and repercussive actions that might drive a wedge between us as parent and child.

As an educator, I worry that she might be behind or too free-spirited to be kind in the ways that are important.

I'm not delusional though. I know that it has to be this way. I know that they must learn to swim so that later when in deeper waters, they will not drown. They have to have the skills to survive in the world and maybe just maybe rise above it as well.  I know that at some point they will see me as I am, a flawed and average man, who is not a superhero.

What I really hope is that my daughter and my sons will retain the good parts of themselves while they refine their minds. What I fear, and I know it is unavoidable, is the loss of their innocent perspective that I find so memorable and endearing.

I want them to go through life empowered and ready, but I also want to have the occasional snuggle time and the closeness that comes with it.

Those who really know me will know that my greatest fear is losing those who I love physically or emotionally through direct or indirect actions on my part. I love them too much to lose them through difference of opinion later in life.

That is why I must change and become more humble and loving. It is the reason why I must build my relationship with each of my children, individually so they know that I will love them through the mistakes that will inevitably come. I want them to know that I always want to sit down for story time with them, stuffed animals or no.

Sammy's going to do awesome in her journey ahead.

I'm just not yet ready to hang up my cape.

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