Clarissa

I don’t recall exactly when it hit me — maybe it was when I was labeling crayons with his name, or when I saw his tiny uniform hung on our cabinet door. Certainly somewhere between the budgeting for tuition and choosing a pencil case, I realized —  He's officially a big kid.

“Pencils and paper” used to be just a phrase. Now it’s a season that marked changes for us. It means routines and early mornings. It means packing snacks, reviewing alphabets, and making sure shoes are clean for Monday. It means watching my little boy take his first steps into a world beyond home — into classrooms, friendships, and learning how to wait his turn.

And as I stood in the middle of a bookstore trying to decode a school supply list that felt like a scavenger hunt, with teary eyes, I said to myself: "so, this is it". This is the start of a brand new chapter — for both of us.