My baby is a kid now.

Today my handsome kiddo started 5th grade.

Fifth.Grade.

This doesn't seem possible, and it's making me sad in a way that his 10th birthday didn't.  Turning 10 was fine!  It meant I had done a decent job of taking care of him for a decade.  Plus he's able to enjoy more stuff that I enjoy along with me, and who doesn't long for that bonding experience once you get through the monotonous inanity of the toddler years?  We watch Firefly together, and discuss Dr. Who.  We read books together that I loved as a kid (and still love now, if we're being honest).  We can play better games, and he can kick my butt at Mario Kart.  (not cool kid.  not cool at all.)  He not only understands sarcasm now, he uses it.  Awesome!  This is all great stuff!  Kiddo also gets bonus points for understanding that poop is just about the funniest joke going.

But fifth grade?  Man that's a bummer.

Fifth is the grade where my elementary school memories start to come out of the fog.  Some of them are great, and I'm still at least casually in contact with a decent amount of my fifth grade class.  We went on awesome field trips, we still had recess, and we were the oldest kids in the school.  Still, I wasn't really happy then.  I remember feeling isolated from both my peers and my family.  For me, fifth grade was the year that I truly remember having a life that I started to keep to myself.  I stopped sharing so much with my family, and damned if I could tell you why.  The angst and self esteem issues I worked through from late elementary until high school really could have been mitigated if I hadn't done that.  So I'm scared.  These are the things that I don't want for my kiddo. Not yet.  I know that it's a freight train that's already heading down the tracks, but man I want to set up as many road blocks for it as I can.  So I'm gonna shove my heart into any door I sense closing, and do my best to be exactly the mom that my Kiddo needs.

Stay cool little dude, just not too cool for me.