A Confession

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I admit that when it comes to my son, I am a bit of a baby.  Tomorrow morning is the day we take him to his new school where he will live most of the year.  There has been so much that needed to be done since we found out his start date.  It is the primary reason why I have not posted anything to this blog for the past few days.

My wife has been spending a lot of time shopping with her mother for all of the things he will need to take with him.  We had to take him to the dentist for an exam.  That was an adventure.  I have been spending a lot of time burning CDs for him to listen to when he is in his room at night.

Knowing something is the right thing to do, and preparing to do it doesn't end the sadness that comes with the separation that is coming.  Even though sending our son to this school has been a goal of ours, I got tears in my eyes when my wife told me the county finally agreed he should go there, when she told me the day he was going to start, and just about any time I think about it.

It might surprise you, or perhaps not, how the littlest thing might set the waterworks in motion.  For example, my son and I headed out to the grocery store this morning to pick up a few things.  One of the things we needed was milk.  Usually I buy a gallon because milk is one of his staples.  Nobody else drinks milk, so since he leaves tomorrow, I only bought a half gallon.  I nearly started to tear up as I reached for the milk.

In light of his behaviors of late that have led to us taking these steps, we have decided not to tell him what is happening tomorrow.  We figure that if he knew he was going to a new school that he would drop to the ground tomorrow and refuse to get in the car.  He likes going over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, so all we have told him is that we are going over the bridge tomorrow.  When he says to me,"No school tomorrow, Daddy," I nearly lose it.

I expect that tomorrow will be pretty tough on all of us, probably the hardest day of my life.  I don't really know what to expect tomorrow when we drop him off.  I know he will not understand fully what is going on.  Previously, one of the toughest things I experienced as a parent was taking him for a medical test where he had to be put to sleep.  I had to go in and help hold him down as they tried to hold the gas mask over his face.  The look on his face said to me, "You are supposed to protect me, why are you letting them do this to me?"  I expect a look like that tomorrow.  
Now, back to burning CDs.