Little T and I have a ritual every Friday after school.  I wait for him outside of his classroom, and I am always greeted with a big smile and an announcement of whether or not he has homework (I can usually tell when he doesn’t, as the smile is much bigger).  Today, he also greeted me with a kiss and a big hug and yelled out “Happy Friday, Mommy!”

He then searches the black bag I bring along with his library books and movies to find his weekly chocolate bar.  As he happily munches away, he tells me about his morning at school.  When the chocolate bar is finished, we get on our bikes and bike over to the library where he chooses his new books and movies for the week while I walk around our local farmers market, or go through his knapsack to see what work he did that day.  Little T is proud to go into the library “all by himself” to choose and check out his items. It’s fun to watch his desire to grow up, but at the same time a piece of my heart aches for one less thing I get to do with him.

When he’s finished, we bike home. He always leads the way home, as I watch from behind to see if he is ready to bike by himself.  I know that day is coming too.  After we arrive home, I go through his knapsack to remove his water bottle, snack box and his gym clothes from his Sports bag. I then put both bags upstairs so that we don’t have to walk past them on the week-end.  We do the same thing with Hubby’s laptop bag after he arrives home from work. It’s a small thing, but it feels good to welcome a two-day break from school and work.

I love our Friday after school ritual. And I know it won’t last forever as soon he will be biking to and from school all by himself.  But in the meantime, I’m going to soak in those weekly big Friday grins and the feeling of holding his hand while we walk towards our bikes.

This is the stuff that really makes life worth living. I decided to write this down for the days when I need to be reminded.

Happy Friday!