What's a First Grade Mom Look Like?

Wow, the school year has come and gone and my Jay is finishing up her kindergarten year as we speak. When she started kindergarten I felt I had wasted five years of her life being a depressed, up and down just to be up again mother to a child who deserved so much more of me. Stability is a great trait to have as a mother, wouldn't you say?

Well I can't say that I wasn't the same mess I've always been since becoming a mother six short years ago, but Jay continues to be her father's child by taking the good with the bad and making the best of it. So as the elementary years keep coming at me I wonder what it will take for me to be the kind of mother I'd like to be to my children, especially Jay who has endured more years of my sheer insanity. What, exactly, does a first grade mom look like? Better yet, what does it look like for me, someone who hopes to be Jay's mom only better?

Most of the moms of the kindies in Jay's class have older children so they've been there done that. Only a couple of us moms have kindies as our oldest child and maybe one or two at home we're trying to potty-train and instill the ability to share before their big kindergarten entrance. So here's just what I'd like to look like as a first grade mom...this time around I'll also be a preschool mom, again. Wow.

I hope to be very different in that I organize all of those Thursday folder sheets of information. This time around I'll know when the 4th graders are selling baked goods or pumpkins and my Jay will have a dollar in her pocket so she can get whatever little treat she'd like. Not like last year.

"Kids in my class got to pumpkins, mommy," she said one afternoon after school.
"Did you get one?" I asked.
"Nope," Jay said with irritation in her voice.
"Well why not?" I asked as the lionness grew inside as I wondered why the heck she didn't get a pumpkin.
" Because you didn't give me any PUN'KIN money!!" She said. The lionness quickly deflated.

How had I missed the dates they were selling pumpkins? I never want to be the mom whose kids don't ever have money to do anything extra at school, like buy a "pun'kin". Guilt built up, as it always does, and I promised we'd go to the store and buy her a pumpkin of her own. I know, not the same, but hey, I tried. It was my first year out okay? Give me a break. Jeesh, as Nas would say.

Another thing I will not do as a first grade mom? I will not try to volunteer for every single, solitary volunteer opportunity. It makes no sense to have 600 kids in a school and about 300 parents at said school who can help out SOME time. So no, I will not volunteer as room mom and I will only participate in events that I will enjoy and can really get into. From carnivals to fund raisers at restaurants to selling everything from coupon books to mountain getaways I just need to say NO. If I can do something and give it my all, I will, if not, I'm not going to half-ass my way through another school year. It's not fair to me, Jay or the other volunteers who enjoy giving their all to each event.

More than anything, this year I want to organize our lives into a routine. At least Monday through Friday, because first grade is the real deal and there's no time to waste on days that come to an end when I realize I didn't even read with my child. I didn't sit and talk with my child, er, better yet I didn't sit and listen to my child who lo-oves talking. Because she'll be gone all day (the tears begin to well) it is going to be so very important for me to spend time with her, with her, on her homework. Not only that, I must have time for just us to stay connected, doing fun things together, just us. Meanwhile I have to keep our lives afloat where the housework and meal planning are concerned, we have to eat and we must have dishes on which we eat. So for the first grade mom, organization really is key.

I'm not sure how other moms do it, but I am fine with giving virtually all of me to my daughter come 3:00 when she bounces off that school bus. What's four short hours with your child who is used to being with you most of the day? I think it's the difference between a child who will tell you what's going on in her world (even at age 6 and 7) and the child who won't. So whatever it takes for me to be the mom I want to be, first grade feels like the do-or-die time to do it. I'm jumping in feet first.