Try everything

At night Eli’s bed is a cocoon. Clad only in underwear, no matter what the season, he burrows himself deep inside a web of blankets, balancing emoji pillows and Super Mario Bros. stuffed figures precariously on top.

“Listen,” I say seriously, snuggling in beside him, “the Tooth Fairy is going to come tonight, but after this I’ve decided you’re not allowed to lose any more teeth.”

He giggles, his tongue poking through the new hole in his lower gums. This time he lost the tooth in school and managed to save it, and I couldn’t believe how small it looked inside the Ziploc baggie, how it curved at one end like a question mark where it had once been secured inside his gums.

“You’re not allowed to grow any more either,” I continue. “You’re just going to stay 5.”

He giggles again. “I am going to get older,” he says, almost patiently; Mama, we’ve been through this. “I’m going to turn 6 and then 7 and then 9 and then when I’m 10 I’m going to get a phone and then I’ll go to college and get a job and be 30 and 40 and 50 and 60” — in one breath, in typical Eli fashion, he’s aged himself past me.

It’s the day of his kindergarten “moving up” ceremony (although this particular moving up is a metaphor, as the last day of school is still more than a month away), and I’m in a reflective mood. The kindergarten teachers who wrote the show took all my usual wild unsentimentality about school functions — I hate the pageantry, the pressure to get a good seat and a good photograph, the parent paparazzi — and tossed it right into my face. The script featured lines about how our babies are going to grow up and go to college. Eli and his friends confidently stepped up to the microphone and told the whole audience about the “roller coaster of kindergarten.” And then, after a nearly 6-year track record of dry eyes at kid ceremonies, my resolve crumpled when the stage full of kindergarteners in matching emoji shirts belted out that Shakira song from “Zootopia”:

I won't give up, no I won't give in 
Till I reach the end 
And then I'll start again 
No I won't leave 
I wanna try everything 
I wanna try even though I could fail 
Try everything!
Try everything!

Can you spot Eli? You can't. Because I couldn't see him from my seat. #momfail

(Trivia: Eli is the one who told me the song is from “Zootopia.” Eli also told me that instead of singing “Fight Song” they were originally supposed to sing “7 Years” and I’m pretty glad they didn’t because I think I really would have lost it weeping.)

Look how far you've come, you filled your heart with love (goddammit Shakira)

There was just something so wonderful about watching them all march down the aisles of the auditorium in their “Many Faces of Kindergarten” shirts, waving their arms in the air. They looked so pleased with themselves, like they had been keeping this secret they were finally ready to show off: We had wanted them to become big kids, had hoped and prayed for them to grow older, and now they had done it. Well done, kindergarten class of 2018.

I truly love this shirt. 

There's that expression, Time is a thief, but I disagree: Time is a gift. Five years ago this June I brought a bewildered Eli to Pickwick School with a bag full of baby bottles and a pacifier clipped on to him, and just yesterday he ran offstage in the auditorium, kissed me gently on the cheek and then skipped off, waving and calling gaily, "Thank you! Bye!" That kiss was time's gift to me, I think; time's way of telling me that the moments I ache to slow down are the moments where it's sweetest to keep moving forward.