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Sept. 17, 2006

The first day

By Michelle Martin

On his first day of kindergarten, Frank dressed himself in his favorite clothes: the faded T-shirt with the map of the CTA train system, the Velcro sneakers and his new Cubs hat.

“I know they’ve been in a big slump for 100 years,” he explained. “But maybe they’ll get better. And they said I had to wear my favorite outfit.”

So, carrying a new backpack nearly as big as himself, we brought Frank to the courtyard where the kindergarten students line up for school.

It was packed, what with many students having both parents in tow. He stood for pictures first with his dad, and then me, and then went to line up in front of his teacher.

His teacher is new to the school, but Frank feels like she’s an old friend, having met her at a back-to-school ice-cream social and the kindergarten orientation meeting.

He also feels like an old hand at school, having two years of preschool under his belt, one at the same school he attends now.

That wasn’t the case for all of his classmates. When Frank walked up and got in line—barely taking time to accept a hug and kiss goodbye—his teacher glanced at his calm face and asked him to take the hand of a boy who looked like he’d rather cling to his mother.

Frank might not have understood, but I did. That was him last year, when his preschool teacher had to take his hand and walk him away from me the first day.

This year, he had none of those first-day jitters. The night before kindergarten I asked if he was little scared, prepared to offer some reassurance.

But he pressed his palms together, like he was praying, and said, “This is how scared I am—none. Not even a little bit. This is how excited I am!” and he spread his arms wide.

The next day, red day in kindergarten, he dressed in red shorts and red T-shirt and put on his red backpack about 20 minutes before it was time to leave. At the end of the day, saying prayers, he asked God to make the next day “even better than today!”

He was even looking forward to homework, God bless him.

But when we walked away from school on the first day of kindergarten, my husband said, “I didn’t cry. How sad.”

It was different three years ago when Caroline went to kindergarten. As with Frank, she seemed more ready for it than we were. Then, we felt sad to see our little girl growing up so fast. Now, in third grade, she seems to be growing by the day, with more firsts coming up. Some are sad, but we’re getting used to it.

Frank, having an older sister to blaze trails for him, doesn’t get as many firsts; he lost his first tooth this summer, but the tooth fairy was already very familiar with our address.

In some ways, maybe it’s easier on him.

The pressure’s off. He knows something about school and kindergarten from Caroline, who has impressed upon him how much easier he will have it than her (“When you’re in third grade you get homework every day!”)

For now, I’m glad he’s finding life exciting and fun. There will be more than enough challenges later, I’m sure, and this is when he will develop the strength to meet them.



Martin is a Catholic New World staff writer. She can be reached at [email protected].