Reunion

Every weekday we had a reunion, Bobo. Just you and I. Two dudes. Seeing each other for the first time that day. I’d be long gone from the house by the time your Mom would get you up for school, so I’d miss the morning routine. But what I did get to participate in is the pickup, and that was a rewarding experience.

Pickups came in a few different forms over the years. You’d been to four different daycares in your short time on this planet. As an infant you were cared for at a daycare that my job at the time put on. I moved jobs which required you to be changed to a different care facility that was certainly less opulent than the first, but no less caring for you. You were going to age out of the infant care portion of that facility and have to be moved up to the larger children’s area. Unfortunately, when we took a look around the larger kids area, the spot you were in developmentally did not lend itself to that daycare. So we looked around for another spot that was a little more tightly controlled for you. We came across a place where the director seemed a little OCD but also seemed like she ran a tight ship. Turned out, it was too tight of a ship for you Bobo. You didn’t adhere to her rules and schedules. And your Mom got a call one day saying that we would need to find alternative care for you. It was heartbreaking, and it was also out first real insight into how your behavioral non-conformity could signal trouble in some aspects of your life. Keep in mind, this daycare was run with children walking from one area to another with their hands on their heads so they wouldn’t fool around in an area that they weren’t currently scheduled for. Any sort of deviation from what I liked to term as the “Gestapo March” would be deemed unacceptable. That is not how you roll Benjamin. No how, no way. We’d been on a waiting list since pretty much birth for you to go to a place called Innovative Preschool. They couldn’t take you until you were two and a half. So we still had a month or so before they were ready for you. Between your mother and I and your grandmother, we were able to cobble together childcare until Innovative was ready for you.

The pickups from my work daycare were fairly non-eventful. You were very young and didn’t completely get the connection between me showing up and you going home. But I was excited. Every day. When I got to leave and pick you up, I’d be happy to go see you and get you out of lockup. When I moved jobs and started picking you up at the new facility, which again, did a great job caring for you, I realized it reminded me of daycares that I’d spent time at. I had some hard daycare experiences in my life which I won’t go into here. Nothing that would qualify as neglect or abuse, but I have always been a sensitive soul (read : weak), so I internalized quite a bit. When I picked you up from this place, you were dirtier than you’d ever been and generally were playing off by yourself under the watchful eyes of teachers, of course, but had no interest in other children for the most part. This would become a staple for you and your developmental milestones would be always reported in relation to this. I had a hard time seeing this because it felt so lonely for you. And I remember being lonely as a kid in places like this. I’m guessing for the most part, I was projecting. As you aged it became apparent that most of the time you’d rather be on your own playing. In the last year or so you’d started to engage with us much more. But in the past that hadn’t been as much of a thing.

At some point with your move to Innovative you started to become very aware of pickup time. All of a sudden you would be very excited to see me show up. You’d see me approaching from the parking lot while you were in the playground and you’d dash over to the fence and get very stressed out when I’d have to go inside and around (out of your sight) to get to where you were. At some point I was alerted that there was a fence entry on the side of the playground that I could use so that you’d never lose sight of me. That made it much easier for everyone. When I arrived, most of the time you’d be spinning a toy, or engaging in some activity that you alone were doing. I’d see all the kids playing together in one group or another, but not you. Sometimes I’d pause because you didn’t see me and watch you. You generally had a toy or something that you were trying diligently to spin. Sometimes you’d just be laying there, making your soft “ma ma ma ma ma” noise. I felt so much love for you, and so much anxiety for you in those moments. I’d wonder what you were thinking and what you were going through. Someone would eventually call out “Ben! Your Dad!” and you’d look up quick, surprised, and get up and start moving toward me, making excited noises. When I got close, up went your arms and you’d insist on being picked up. And I’d oblige. Sometimes I’d have things in my arms but no matter what I was dealing with, I’d pick you up to feel your arms around me and your excitement to see me. As you became older this ritual continued as it had every day before. My last pickup would be not a whole lot different than pickups of years past. The only difference being is that your size was now requiring me to put you down about halfway to the car because you were getting too heavy. But I believed that even though we were far past when you’d see other parents carry their kids out, that the time for me to be able to carry you was limited, and that I should take every opportunity I could to haul you around. In retrospect, I had much less time then I even imagined.

Every day I came for you, I’d be excited to leave work and began clockwatching because I wanted to see you and I knew you began getting anxious about my arrival even if you couldn’t tell or have concept of time really. I’d rush down the highway on my 40ish minute drive to your preschool thinking about you in hopes your day was good and I’d get a good report.

For all of those wonderful reunions over your almost 7 years of life, I enjoyed every single one. And for always, I will look fondly back on them as some of the best times I’ve had.