We’re Outta Here
Posted By jayna on June 7, 2013

About two months ago, I was half-heartedly eavesdropping on the husband while he talked to his parents on the phone. This and that about our upcoming family vacation and rentals and meals to cook and dates to travel on. June 8th came out of his mouth and I vehemently shook my head. No, no, no, we weren’t checking in until the 15th, dear, get it right!
But. . . yeah. No.
For nearly six months I had been going about my planning, sure that I had booked our vacation to start on the 15th. The day after Miss E was to finish kindergarten. It was written on calendars, entered into every time keeping device we owned, emailed to every family member I thought would need it, talked about over and over as plans were made. Conversation after conversation with the husband using that week.
No one corrected me for six months.
And then when they finally did, I spent a week convinced I was certifiably insane and had completely lost my mind. That was the only logical explanation to my entering a binding agreement to pay a hefty chunk of change on a rental house during my first born’s last week of kindergarten.
Thankfully, it turns out that I’m not completely insane.
Just a little bit.
Apparently, when I booked our vacation way back in the beginning of the school year, for the week of June 8th, the kids were actually supposed to be done with school on that Friday, June 7th. Whooo, point one for proper planning! Except . . . somewhere along the way, the school board changed the yearly calendar and adjusted for our (completely unnecessary) snow days by adding a week. The problem was, they never put out any sort of notice or publication or revision to the school calendar. Instead, it was more of a sly, under the radar switch. All of a sudden, June 14th was being used on things as the last day. So . . . in my mind, I simply matched up when I thought our vacation was to follow the last day of school. And continued to think that way for the entire school year.
Spoiler alert: It’s June 7th and we are not in Virginia anymore.
Today I picked E up for the last time as a kindergartener and found her more giddy with excitement over the beach than finishing her last day. She’s missing three days next week (the school board went on to subtract two days somewhere along the way – also without fanfare) and is unphased. With a stuffed backpack and farewell gifts from her teacher, she gave a giant peace out to all her friends and never looked back.
Tomorrow she’ll dive into the First Grade workbooks I packed up for her, true to the core of what an excellent student she’s become. She’ll read every book we brought in the car, out loud for her siblings to hear, with her voice full of confidence and the perfect intonation. She’ll talk about concepts we never dreamed she would grasp at this age and show us how the world of kindergarten really has changed in 25 years. We learned about stranger danger and how to tie our shoes, not about computers and chapter books. She can navigate websites and give presentations on her favorite animals, while we’re left scratching our heads over where on earth our first baby has gone. And on we’ll go, past this week and through the summer, until it’s time to go back and see if she really is still the tallest girl in her grade.
Farewell, kindergarten. You were a wonderful year to grow through.









