displacement

“Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” - Elizabeth Stone

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when i(repeatedly) asked the boy what he thought of his first day of pre-school, his immediate answer was, "i cried."

when i (repeatedly) asked if he liked his school, he either ignored the question, talked about "turning," or playing with water, or his brows slowly furrowed as his mind retreated deep into the things he cannot articulate.

i could not tell you if it was the right decision to leave him in a new space with 10 or so little strangers and the teachers he's met only twice before, for as long as we did.


but for more than half of that time (when we weren't sitting in a coffee shop wondering how he was doing), we were in the hallway: taking turns cuddling the girl. listening. listening while chatting. chatting about listening. then actually spying.




when class was over, the teacher assured us the intermittent crying was normal. 


and i believe it. 

there is nothing comforting about finding yourself in a strange place, with people you haven't quite learned to interact with, all alone in the world (it would seem), for the first time.


but with two sleeps behind him, the next time we go to preschool will no longer be the first. and i won't be around to listen in from the hallway because duty calls at work.


so we'll all just have to choose to be brave tomorrow, won't we?


(do you think it's appropriate to text the teacher every half hour?)