Almost Ready

There's a particular quality to late summer light — the way it slants through windows at angles that weren't there in July, catching motes of cat fur suspended in the air like tiny question marks. Our new kitten has claimed the guest bathroom sink as her throne, a choice that makes perfect sense to her and none to us. She's settling into our rhythms while we're all preparing for new ones — the way August always holds both endings and beginnings in the same breath.

My child's sneakers sit by the front door — just sneakers for now, though I keep researching dress shoes for picture day, adding and removing pairs from online carts I never quite checkout from. Each small decision feels enormous when you're questioning everything. What size should the backpack be? Do they provide all the art supplies? When did choosing between shoes and UPF clothes become an existential crisis?

We're almost ready for school. Except I'm not. Not even close.

The backpack (which might not even be the right backpack) sits in the playroom, empty and waiting. Its zipper makes a hollow sound when I test it, like it's asking to be filled with purposes I can't yet name. We should get the supply list soon, but I have a tentative cart online filled with items I can't figure out if we actually need. Do other parents already know these things? My wife seems less consumed by these details, more trusting that we'll figure it out as we go. Sometimes I envy that confidence.

There's something about not knowing the basics that gets me. I've spent hours researching what they might actually need, reading about naptime transitions, ordering books about starting school. Maybe a visual schedule for morning routines? The tabs on my browser multiply like my questions: "What do kids really need for school?" "How to prepare your child for school?" "Do they still do circle time?"

But underneath all the practical questions lurks the one I can barely voice: How do you send your child into a world where lockdown drills are as routine as fire safety? Where teachers practice barricading doors and children learn to hide quietly in closets? This isn't the world I grew up preparing for, and I don't know how to reconcile my daughter's need for community and learning with the headlines that make my chest tighten every morning.

We're preparing for school… but not all at once. Not too fast. Because honestly? I'm terrified.

The kitten (we're still trying on names) has become an unexpected anchor in these final weeks of summer. She's a soft companion during a time of big change, yes, but she's more than that. She's living proof that we're all just figuring it out as we go, even when the stakes feel impossibly high. When my daughter practices phonics sounds on the couch, the kitten weaves around the cushions, her purr a quiet counterpoint to the careful pronunciation of sounds. Neither of them knows what comes next, but they're both showing up for the moment at hand.

There's something profound about welcoming a tiny, uncertain creature into your home just as you're preparing to send your child into an uncertain world. The kitten doesn't know our house rules yet, doesn't understand that the guest bathroom sink wasn't meant to be a bed. But she's here, trusting us to figure it out together, the same way we're trusting that school will somehow work out, that our daughter will find her place in a classroom full of strangers. I have another online cart open — this one filled with cat supplies. We really need a scratching post.

Maybe that's what I needed to see. That readiness isn't a prerequisite for love, for growth, for taking the next right step. That we're all just figuring it out as we go, even the parents who seem to know which backpacks to buy and never lie awake wondering if they're making the right choice.

Will I ever be ready for this? Will any parent ever feel ready to hand their child over to strangers for seven hours a day, to trust that those strangers will keep her safe in a world that sometimes doesn't feel safe at all?

The house feels different — not just because school is coming, but because something (someone) new has arrived. In the mornings, I find tiny paw prints on the bathroom counter and my child's attempt at packing their own lunch on the kitchen island. Evidence of growing up and settling in, all mixed together in the ordinary chaos of August. My daughter has started trying out all her clothes during quiet time, a ritual she invented that makes her feel more prepared than any of my research has made me feel.

I catch myself in these small moments of transition, wrestling with questions that have no clean answers. Standing in the hallway at 2 AM, listening for sounds from the baby's room while the kitten pads softly through the house, both of us creatures of the night in our own ways. Sleep is a big bottleneck in this house right now — everyone's rhythms shifting as we prepare for early mornings and structured days.

Is it the right choice for my kid even if I'm uncomfortable and not ready? Even if the world feels scarier than it did when I was five?

The question loops in my mind like the kitten chasing her feather toy. Around and around, never quite catching the answer. But maybe that's the point. Maybe the uncertainty itself is part of the readiness. Maybe admitting I don't know — about backpacks or whether it's safe to send her into the world — is the first honest step toward knowing.

Caught between holding on and letting go, between trusting and protecting.

Some days I perform readiness through research. I bookmark articles about school transitions and read reviews of lunch boxes. I add books to our library list: "The Kissing Hand," "First Day Jitters." I screenshot visual schedule ideas and wonder if laminating them will make this easier for all of us. The empty backpack stares at me from the playroom — a daily reminder that I still don't know if it's the right size, the right style, whether it needs a name tag and where.

But then other thoughts creep in, the ones that make me want to pull the covers over all of us and homeschool forever. The news. The drills they'll have to practice. The weight of sending your most precious thing into a system that has to prepare children for threats that shouldn't exist in their world. How do other parents make peace with this? How do you balance your child's right to childhood with the reality that innocence feels more fragile than it used to?

The questions that keep me awake: Am I doing this too soon? Should we wait another year? Do other parents feel this lost, this scared, or do they all have some manual I never received?

Last night, during our usual bedtime cuddle, the conversation I'd been avoiding all summer finally happened. The kitten was curled up in the trundle bed below us. My daughter asked me directly about school, and for once I didn't deflect with cheerful reassurances. Instead, I told her I was scared too.

We talked about missing each other, about new things being both exciting and frightening, about how being brave doesn't mean not being afraid. She listened with that serious attention she brings to important conversations, asking the kinds of questions that make your heart catch. When we finally settled into sleep, something had shifted between us — an honesty that felt both tender and necessary.

Almost ready feels like the most honest place to be — but so does admitting I might never feel fully ready. Not for this magnitude of letting go, not for trusting strangers with my most precious thing, not for sending her into a world where lockdown drills are part of the curriculum. Not for the way this choice will change us both forever.

But maybe readiness was never the point. Maybe the point is showing up anyway. Maybe it's saying yes to growth even when your hands shake completing the enrollment forms. Maybe it's getting a kitten on a Friday because your heart said it was time for something new, even though you couldn't explain why. Maybe it's admitting you're scared while still moving forward, teaching your child that courage isn't the absence of fear but the decision to trust despite it.

The school sneakers wait by the door, their straps already loosened for quick morning changes. The empty backpack sits in the playroom. The kitten sleeps in the afternoon light, dreaming kitten dreams.

We're almost ready. I'm not ready at all. And somehow, both things can be true. Somehow, both things might be exactly enough.