He'll Never Admit It, But We Know The Truth

I leave for work in the morning before the boys get on the bus. Micah is kind of down with this, because he loves independence. I packed his lunch for him, and he had to unpack it, put it all away, then get it out again and put it in the lunch box himself. I guess he can't be having his friends suspect that his mama packs his lunch for him. I mean, he's in fourth grade and all. (Insert rolling eyes here.)

So anyhoo, when I give him a kiss and tell him that I'm leaving, he's happy enough to stand in the door and wave me on my way as long as he gets to stay behind with his siblings, parentless. Being one of the big kids is what he lives for. Unfortunately for him, being parentless lasts for all of ten minutes before they need to load up in the nephew's car for the drive to school.

He's doing alright in school, thank you for asking. He hid his day planner from his teacher so that she couldn't write a note for me the other day. Somehow, I didn't realize that he was such a stinker at school. He seems to be taking Class Clown to extremes, but really, what is there for me to do about it on my end? Other than laugh, that is.

But it's the after-school thing that's not going so well in Micah's day. For two days now, he's come home from school all out of sorts and grumpy. That's not normally like him. Normally, he walks in the door, says hi to Becky and I, finds Woody, and spends an hour snacking and decompressing. I'm thinking that whole independence thing isn't as awesome after a long day at school as it is when you first wake up in the morning. And while it's rather reassuring to know that he misses his mama, it's also disconcerting that he'll have a rough go of it when we're on vacation later this month. Without him.

The stress of parenthood is enough to gray a mom. Thankfully I've got good genes behind me, and have somehow managed to avoid graying so far. But that, too, is beside the point. The point is that Micah still needs his mama. That kind of makes this mom heart happy.