off to school

And so it begins. We're are more than one month into kindergarten and I may (or may not) be finally getting the hang of it. Homework, spelling tests, Spanish, cooking club, parent hours - not to mention all the extra curriculars - soccer, piano, dance. It's enough to overwhelm even the most experience parent let alone little old me. Pretty sure I am losing my mind and am "having one of those days" every day for the last month. The good thing is that Little Miss J LOVES school. Unlike her mom, she's definitely got the hang of it. We pull up by the front door, she hops out of the car, dons her backpack and heads right on into the cafeteria for breakfast. Most mornings I have to ask for a hug and kiss goodbye.

I think the most pivotal change has been me learning to accept that there will always be others influencing my child. Those outside of our familial unit. Those who perhaps don't value the same things that we teach Little Miss J to value. Until this moment we, as her parents, were her greatest influence. We have shaped her view of the world from the ground up, and not surprisingly, it matches our own. Right, wrong, fact, fiction, and that grey area in between. We have defined those boundaries for her, and Little Miss J has listened to our words like they are gospel.

My precocious little girl came home from school rather offended by some "untrue words" spoken to her during lunch. The "untrue words" turned out to be a statement about potato chips being good food rather junk food, which was diametrically opposed to what Little Miss J has been taught and so she declared them "untrue words." In my opinion, she's not wrong. Nevertheless, it got me thinking about how big of an influence I have had on my daughter that she takes my words as fact, which in this case they were, but I get the feeling that this applies across the board whether I am stating a fact or expressing an opinion.

I am pleased that Little Miss J has truly listened and learned from us, and I am proud to see her living a life in accordance with our values, but I also feel the weight of the responsibility of raising a kind child, who has all the tools to make good choices, and will be a value to our society. Whitney Huston was not wrong. The children are our future, and I am personally responsible for raising humans that don't suck. That's HUGE!

There will always be external influences and outside pressures, but even at not quite five years old, and to quote Dr. Seuss, I can tell that my Little Miss J has brains in her head, feet in her shoes and she can steer herself in any direction she chooses. We're just starting kindergarten and we've got a long way to go, but I am impressed with how well Little Miss J already seems to know who she is.