Off to Preschool: The First Backpack

My three year old is starting preschool for the first time. He’s ready. I’m not sure I am.

The trickest part of all of this: The Backpack. The very bag that my little one packs full of snacks and his best Lightning McQueen and totes along with him as he begins to explore the world. Without his mama next to him.

I have been agonizing over this purchase for an embarrassingly long time. Do we go whimsical? Sturdy? Big enough to last for a couple years? Should I put his name on it, or does Stranger Danger negate monograms? Should I choose something generic enough for little brother? I ended up letting Jack sit in front of the computer with me as I clicked through a few pre-selected options. He picked the airplanes. Of course he did. Expensive. Understated. Still little-boy but not cutesy. That’s my Jack. He watched daily for the UPS man. “Thank you for my backpack!” he yells as the driver knocks on the door.

I’m hardly a sentimental person. But the sight of my blonde 38-inch boy, clutching his new starched, bulky backpack almost did me in. “This is my new backpack!” he exclaims to anyone who sets foot in our house. “I’m going to preschool!” You’d think 5 hours a week was Ivy League by the sounds of his excitement.

He’s off to new adventures. It’s a big step for a kid who has a stay-at-home mom and was incredibly reluctant to participate in even church childcare. So far, I have been aware of how almost everything has arrived into his world. I know usually know where he is going within the first words of a story or question. I know his favorites, he knows mine, we are buddies. I also know he needs a little room to grow, and it’s happening. I’ll give him his first-day-of-school pancakes and we will take a picture with his teacher. He’s getting a surprise truck lunchbox on the first day and daddy will take him for ice cream after dinner, as tradition mandates. I will smile and be brave, pretending this isn’t his first little step toward independence.

The Backpack. The new Converse. It’s a strange rite of passage, that first day of school.