The School Lunch Menu

I cried looking at the August lunch calendar on Wednesday.
(How's that for equal parts of honesty and embarrassment?  Andrew may have weighted embarrassment a little heavier when I told him that night. 
Always keeping me humble, that one.)

Henry is starting kindergarten in less than three weeks, and as much as I have loooooooonged for this day at many, many times over the last several years, it's hitting me harder than I thought it would.  It feels like he's leaving for college tomorrow (Manhattan clearly, where else would he go?), not starting kindergarten.

He's ready (for kindergarten, that is),
and I know it's the right place and right time for him.

And while some of you have been having the #bestsummerever, we've been over here literally #survivingsummer or #tryingtomakeittobedtime or just even trying to #hideinmybathroomandtakedeepbreaths ALONE which never happens because my kids have a radar for when I try to potty in solitude. 
(Also helpful in the humility department.)

BUT.
 How is my first baby old enough to be eating school lunch in a lunch room with school friends instead of at my kitchen table having peanut butter and jellies
for the 1,000th time?

It's the start.

The beginning of the school years where he spends more of his waking hours away than at home.  And while this tired mama is like, oh my gosh, yasssssss, a break!!, this tired mama is also mourning the end of these first years when we could stay in our jammies until 10am if we wanted to and naptime dictated our schedule and Daniel Tiger provided many life lessons, and I didn't have to think about bullies or homework and now I'm ordering kindergarten uniform pants and filling out final registration paperwork and praying that he's both brave and kind to others and others to him, and wondering have we loved him hard enough, and does he know that, and will he be lonely or scared, and will he make friends, and, and, and, AND.

This is what they're supposed to do...grow up?  Can we find a happy medium where I don't have to play referee and both cruise entertainment director every waking moment of every day, but where he stays sweet and innocent and giggles and build forts in every room of the house even though it drives me crazy?  

To finding ways to enjoy our last bit of summer (and also survive), and to giving them both roots and wings, and to maybe scheduling some lunchroom visits. 
Because the school menu looks way better than mine.