I'm spring-boarding off Potty's post about her son not needing to be walked into the classroom these days. The same thing is happening to me, although I think I have a little excuse to jump up and down with unabashed glee.
A few years ago I wrote how, when my youngest went into 1st grade (Year 2), it was the first time in about 16 consecutive years that I hadn't had a small child in the house either all day or half a day. I was finally free of the mad rush to get everything accomplished between about 9am and 11.30am. Of course, it was tinged with a little sadness that they were all grown up, (I have to say that really, don't I?) but for the most part I felt a certain sense of FREEDOM! (You really have to read that post to get the full sense of joy and abandon I felt at the time.)
It's happening again on a smaller, but possibly more meaningful, scale. See, little kids at our school start later than the bigger kids, so for years I've had kids going to school at different times. Given that we live only a few blocks from the school, it hasn't been a big deal; the older two walked on their own (or several feet apart usually), and I took the Little Guy in at 8.30am.
This year he's going into 4th grade (Year 5) and - oh joy - he starts at 8.10am, - just like his big brother. Do you know what this means?
I don't have to walk him there; I don't have to leave the house; I don't even have to get out of my PJs.
Of course it also means that one of them will probably kill the other one on the three-block walk, thus necessitating a chaperone (me); or, more likely, the Little Guy will take so long to get to his classroom (stopping to talk to teachers, friends etc) that he will lose half of his belongings before he gets safely to his locker and I will be forced to accompany him.
The other distinct possibility is that I will just never get dressed. Working from home, I quite often return from school drop-off and don't emerge till 3pm when it's time to pick him up. I am in real danger of becoming a recluse agoraphobic (if that isn't a redundancy).
Watch this space.