Skip to main content

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.




As always, comment and share.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Milestones in Fatherhood

One of the best things about raising children is all of the firsts that happen for each child. When I was young, living in the old house on Bright Street, my father would mow the lawn with this really old tank of a lawn mower. This was still in the days that when the equipment broke, you fixed it multiple times before you threw it away. The mower was a red affair with a dented gas cap that would cross the threads if placed without care. I would watch my dad mow with precise lines the small lawn in front of my childhood home. I always wanted to help and often, I would follow in his foot steps, watching the impressions of his feet in the newly mowed lawn. My trailing behind dad could not have lasted long. He, I'm sure could not have known that I was behind him all the time, and he, of course, realized how dangerous it was for me to be directly behind him when he would stop and turn. That is how I think I found myself pushing on the middle rung of the lawn mower shortly after...
Post a Comment
Read more

Last Camping Trip of the Season

Originally Published 9/1/2017 The week before school started, we went on one last camping trip to a beautiful, high-mountain lake secreted in the back pocket of Burley, Idaho. My children were excited to go on this trip because we would be camping with our family friends. Lake Cleveland, Idaho is a gorgeous, high-mountain lake that is regularly stocked with cutthroat and rainbow trout. Its beautiful waters are also free of motorized watercraft, so the area stays free of noise and the raucous behaviors that are associated with thrill seeking on the water. It is a place out of time and mind unless you live close by. The people of the eastern Magic Valley are protective of their little treasure and for a good reason. For it is a place where the muscles can relax, the mind can ease, and the kids can run around. Unless you are Jesse and Griffin. As Sarah drove up Mount Harrison, we passed through some heavy hail and slush on the road. Keep in mind this was the second week in August. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dancing in the Rain, Goodbye Smoke

Buddies, even in a hail storm As most of the nation's attention is drawn to the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey, We in the West are burning up, literally. The fires rage in Washington and Montana and the rest of the West breathes it in. The high school football games were canceled because of air quality, (This comment is in no way meant to make light of those suffering in Texas. Instead, I'm stating that we haven't seen the sun for a while.) Portland was a blur behind smokey skies on September 5, 2017. (SBG photo)&nbsp Need I say more. Now this will seem obvious to most of my readers because you're here with me, but for those of you who read my stuff internationally, you may find our normally clear skies unappealing this time of year.   We like pine trees and forests in the West, but we don't like to breathe them. And this is the season of the burn. Every year my home state burns. Every year I breathe it in and wonder when the rains will come....
Post a Comment
Read more