Growing up on the first day of school

as published at www.ocregister.com on Sept. 12th, 2012:

The Friday before the first day of the school plays out the same way every year in my town.

A steady stream of sun-dressed moms drag their sweaty herds of offspring to our neighborhood school at 3:55 p.m. The mood around the class-posting zone is anxious, gnawing, clawing as 4 p.m. nears and The Listis solemnly walked out by a brave team who seem to vanish the second their placements hit the board.

The moms can’t wait for those neatly typed papers that signify it’s real: the utter lawlessness of summer is over and they can reclaim their lives — their workouts, their kid-free erranding. And even more importantly, The List bears the name of the one other adult in the world who will split the burden of caring, sharing and staring down that mother’s child for nine months as he grows up a bit in a little plastic chair, his secular womb.

For the kids, The List means even more. A merciful match can be the payoff for a summer spent finger crossing for the teacher who gives out candy. Or it can seemingly signal the end of childhood when all your friends are placed in one class — the other class, not yours — with the teacher you wanted but didn’t get.

And that’s how things went down for my first grader this year — my shyest, of course. We scanned down sheets of teachers we knew and kids we recognized to no avail. When we finally found Blake’s name on the list of a teacher we didn’t know too well, splattered in the middle of a long list of kids we didn’t know at all, my heart sank.

“He doesn’t know one other boy in his class!” I whisper-yelled into my cell, dragging my husband into the blacktop drama.

“How’s he taking it?” Michael asked.

“He hasn’t — he doesn’t — he’s on the jungle gym right now,” I sputtered, watching my oblivious son’s blonde curls blow in the breeze ushering in what would be the loneliest year ever...

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Growing up on the first day of school - Cracking Up - The Orange County Register