Latest column: Back to School (sigh...)

My oldest son started first grade yesterday. He’s excited about getting his very own desk, about eating lunch in the cafeteria, about playing with his friends at recess. He’s been looking forward to this week all month.

But I’m in agony. Sending Christian to first grade is, perhaps, the hardest thing I’ve been asked to do since his 30-hour labor and delivery seven years ago. And that, my friends, was a hard day. Err, days.

I feel like I did back in my school days, begging for just one more week. Please, God, let me have one more week with my son before the school owns him. Before his teacher sees more of him than I do.

You’d think I’d have gotten this out of my system when we sent him to kindergarten.

“Did you cry?” friends asked that day, nodding in anticipation of my quivering lip.

“No,” I’d answer truthfully — as if admitting I had no soul.

But sending Christian to kindergarten was exciting. He was ready. We were ready. And, most importantly, he was still mine. Heck, I hardly had time to buy groceries in the 2-1/2 hours he was in Mrs. Hansen’s afternoon kindergarten class.

First grade is different. I can’t shake the feeling that “This Is It.” That I’ve just lost my little boy forever.

As far as I can tell, the school now owns him for the next 12 years. And then he’ll leave for college — probably to somewhere far away. And then he’ll get married. And, let’s face it, he’ll spend the holidays with his wife’s family, because that’s how it is and I’llhardlyeverseehimagain.

In a sort of pre-emptive strike, I took Christian out last weekend for a Mommy and Me day. A last hurrah before life as I know it ends. We combined it with back-to-school shopping. A little DQ, a little Star Wars undies.

He brightened when I told him he’d get to spend the day alone with me, but groaned when I told him we’d spend it at the mall.

And I don’t blame him. Kids have better things to do than try on clothes all day. And parents have better things to do than follow them around, begging them to just try on the clothes already.

We knew this going in, and we faced up to it from the beginning: “Neither of us want to do this, Christian,” I said, as we maneuvered into the last parking space within a half-mile radius of Herberger’s. “It’s painful and no fun. But I can’t send you to school naked. So let’s just get it over with.” He nodded, accepting his fate.

And we had a nice day. We shared a box of Rainbow Popcorn in the food court. We mugged in the dressing room mirrors. We sang a little cheer on the way home: “We’re all done sho-o-oping, all done sho-o-o-ping…!”

I watched him singing in the rearview mirror. A monster child compared to the baby I brought home just days ago… in 1999. Blue eyes like his dad’s. Freckles like mine had been. Sweet. Funny. Mine.

Mine. But only for so short a time. He’s sand slipping between my fingers. And I suspect I won’t get through another first day of school without tears.