I wonder if the forest preservation people realize how much paper the average kindergarten class bleeds through in an academic year?
I had the equivalent of at least a few hundred murdered trees stacked in my mock mud room courtesy of my just graduated kindergartener. Miles of worksheets interspersed with dozens of art projects, end of the school year autograph books (translation: scrap pieces of paper stapled to form a book with the names of each of my daughter’s classmates scribbled in kindergarten cursive), and mountains of registration material for everything from summer Bible camp to youth soccer sessions.
Post graduation cubby clean out was no small task. Neither was the job of sifting through the tree carnage. It took me nearly four hours to go through Mt. Olympaper. In the end, most of the worksheets found a new home in the recycle bin, the “important” paperwork was saved and filed, and my daughter’s mini masterpieces are now doubling as wallpaper in the hallway.
I’m not a huge scrapbooker. I would be if I had more time. Which is not to say that I am not a sentimentalist. I am an avid photographer and my daughter is my main subject. I happily document her major milestones and delight in her everyday accomplishments. However, I don’t catalog each and every moment of her life.
Big mistake!
Or so I thought when I came across a large piece of laminated blue construction paper in Mt. Olympaper with the words “2000 Days Old” meticulously printed at the very top.
The rest of the sheet was filled with colorful hand drawn pictures of my daughter participating in her favorite activities: biking, eating chocolate chip pancakes, hugging her stuffed dinosaur, and swimming.
I later learned that much like the 100th Day of School, turning 2,000 days old in kindergarten is reason to celebrate… or at the very least, a reason to make yet another art project.
I’m not great with math, so it took me a bit to figure out that 2,000 days equals just under five-and-a-half years.
Apparently, all of the kids in my daughter’s kindergarten class reached this milestone some time during the school year. As such, my daughter’s teacher used the occasion to incorporate math lessons (the kids learned the difference between 10s, 100s, 1000s), art (hence the laminated collage), and spelling (there’s no “e” or “z” in “days”).
As for me, the “2,000 Days Old” project taught me a valuable lesson in perspective.
My precious peanut has been on earth for more than 2,000 days.
My precious peanut has been on earth for more than 2,000 days?
How has it only been 2,000 days?
It seems like she’s been a part of me forever.
She is my light, my joy, my everything.
I can’t imagine life without her… and I don’t want to.