Chocolate Pudding

I laid in bed listening to the giggles and excited chatter outside my window.

It’s the first day of elementary school here in Suburbia.

I felt awash with memories – grief and sadness.    Like so many in my position, I asked myself  ‘where  HAD the time had gone’.    How did it happen that THIS would be the last year, I’d have a child in the public school system.   For nearly 20 years, this day was an Event in our family.

As a mom with young children, I started a tradition of making homemade chocolate pudding the night before the first day of school.    Bedtime was always a challenge.   In an effort to infuse structure, we typically had spent the previous week  trying to “establish a routine” of a regular, earlier bedtimes.  (Note to new parents:   it doesn’t work.)   They could never seem to settle down.     The excitement rivaled that of Christmas during those Elementary school years.

Oh, I know, great organic ones, that serving up a warm bowl of chocolate sugary goodness might have added to the bedtime challenge.   Yet,  in weighing the checks and balances,  that bowl was Comfort…it was memories…it said “I love you”, I delight in you.   “Have a bowl of pudding, puddin‘”  was my traditional serving line.  Their laughter at my dorkiness, meant more to me, than being the sugar-police as I so often was.

Middle school arrived with it’s own complexities.  Parental presence became slightly diminished. The school supply list became more detailed and necessary.    Excitement was still there, with  a shade of nervousness swirling about.    The new outfits  that had been researched for weeks prior,  were now being worn, in an effort to flex the first signs of ‘cool’.    I still made pudding, noticing that I  had to interrupt their TV watching, Nintendo playing or techno-surfin’  to get them to sit down and enjoy it together..

High School, and our presence was indeed….tolerated, barely.   Certainly NOT in the school yard, “Gawwwd Mooom”.       They acquiesced to picture taking, but we were given 5 minutes, at the most.   The kids went off to school in packs – like wildebeests.   Soon,  they began driving themselves to school.    One of my children stopped taking home lunch to school, preferring the over processed school ‘lunchable’.  Now, THAT was a treat for my guy.      Compromising all personal ethos,  one year, I bought Swiss Miss  pudding in non-recycled plastic containers.

Oh, so MANY times during their school years, I dragged my sorry, tired butt out of bed.  I secretly, and maybe not so secretly,  looked forward to  3-4 hours of alone time – time to get my chores done, time to have coffee with a friend….Time!      I fantasized about ‘going back to bed”, and did just that – maybe once or twice.   I envied my co-workers who did not have children and were able to arrive at work on time.

My daughter begins her Senior Year of high school tomorrow morning.   She did her own “school” shopping, picking out her own outfits.   She has long ago determined her own bedtime.   She drives herself to work, and to school.   An excellent student, the only excitement she has today is that this will be her last year.     My son is a freshman in college and today was his first day.    I texted him my love.

and tonight……tonight,  for my heart and for my soul…..

I made chocolate pudding.