 |
| Sweet baby Bode |
Back-to-school is bittersweet this year. Sure, I’m looking forward to both the kids finally being in full-day school but also mourning the loss of spending my afternoons with my little buddy, Bode. I say this with every year but I really wish I could just freeze time.
“Freeze” being the operative word, thus meaning it would be winter.
With Hadley already back in school, Bode and I crammed in as much as we could our last day together: Monopoly tournaments, the skate park with our buddies, a fun playdate.
That evening, it was like the night before Christmas and he couldn’t sleep with anticipation so I spent some time in his room. You know those kids who are OCD clean freaks? Mine are the opposite and it looked like a bomb had gone off.
“Bode, we need to take a few minutes to pick up this room. We can’t go to the first day of school with our room looking like this, can we?”
“Sure we can!”
He is called a “lazy optimist.”
The next morning, I woke up early to bake him cinnamon rolls and insisted we snap some first-day shots in the garden. He hates to have his picture taken so I told him to do some funny poses. He tried, he really did. But my friend Susan pointed out on Facebook that he has Jazz hands.
 |
| Modeling Grandma B’s back-to-school clothes |
I’m not going to explain what that is because my little man’s man would be mortified.
Unless he someday stars on Broadway and we can say it all started here.
By the time we got to school, he had simmered down from his photo shoot and was thrilled with his teacher. Bubbly fun, energetic and beloved, Bode already got to know her last year when he was bumped up to her first grade reading class.
That forced, pained smile means he’s happy inside. Really.
Maybe we should go back to the Jazz hands pose.
Only one of last year’s besties (Nicky) is in his class so he was a bit nervous when we arrived to be surrounded by (horrors) girls. I spotted one little boy in line who had an Angry Bird attached to his backpack and pointed it out to Bode.
That was all he needed.
Thirty seconds later, the dude had a BFF and I’m sure they’re already planning their first Angry Birds in Space playdate.
It’s good to be a first grader.
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 