And for the record, after polling of friends and family and many weeks of searching we landed on a fabulous gray and orange dinosaur patterned Pottery Barn Kids backpack with "IWB" stitched on front :)
THE PERFECT BACKPACK
By Kara Gebhart Uhl
“Do you like this one?” I swung my laptop around, showing my husband a picture of a small Skip Hop backpack shaped like a little bee. He sighed. I swung my computer back, clicked the next tab over and swung it around again. “Or this one?” Now he was looking at a pink junior-size L.L. Bean model. He stared at me. “You can get it monogrammed,” I said.
“For the last time, just pick one,” he replied.
His response was justified. I’ve shown him dozens of backpacks. I’ve talked at great length about the height of my 3-year-old daughter, Sophie, and the various weights and dimensions of smaller backpacks marketed to mothers of preschoolers, just like myself. I’ve debated color: pink, purple or red (those are her favorites). I’ve debated animal: bee, owl or fox. I’ve debated number of pockets, material, cost.
I quickly vetoed any Disney character. For surely she would want a princess and she’s going to preschool, to sing songs, read stories, learn her numbers and letters, paint and make new friends. A beautiful princess longing for her knight in shining armor appliquéd to the fabric that would carry the weight of what she would create and learn just seemed wrong. No, I decided, I wouldn’t even let her know princess backpacks exist.
I researched. I read “Top 10 Preschool Backpack” lists. I asked friends. I read online reviews. I checked Consumer Reports. I became annoyed with the models that wouldn’t fit a standard sheet of paper. (Her artwork! It will wrinkle!) I was intrigued by the plastic model that allows you to frame your child’s artwork on the outside — but then deemed it too showy. I checked Etsy for homemade versions. I dug in my closet for my well-worn pink corduroy one, lined with pretty floral fabric. The flap is an elephant’s face, with large puffy ears sticking out to the sides, its trunk serving as a place for Velcro. It was my first backpack, which my mom made for me.
I thought about all my backpacks. The green JanSport I had in elementary school. The tan and leather Eddie Bauer backpack I thought was so college-esque. The Esprit bag I begged for and loved.
I thought about all they held. Turkeys made from my handprint. My first cursive letters. Heavy textbooks wrapped in brown paper bags. Good report cards. So-so report cards. Notes from classes. Notes from friends. Folders covered in bored-during-class artwork. My trombone mouthpiece. My planners. My Bonne Bell lip gloss.
Sophie is my oldest. And so far, her milestones have simply, honestly made me ridiculously happy. I didn’t cry when she or her twin brothers were born. I smiled. Big. I didn’t cry when she took her first steps. I cheered. Loudly. I didn’t cry at her first birthday. I frosted cupcakes, hung a banner and sang.
Someone once told me that my job as a mother is to help my children grow and that growth should be celebrated, not mourned. So I’ve embraced that fully. Sure I’ve looked at her in awe, running across the bouncy bridge at the playground, the one she was terrified of only a few weeks before, and thought to myself the line everyone loves to say: they grow up so fast. But I’ve never cried over it or wished the opposite or tried to stop it — until, I realized, now.
I was fine researching preschools. I was downright giddy when we got our new-parent material in the mail and read about Halloween costumes and appropriate birthday treats and the Valentine’s Day party and the zoo coming to visit and the symphony coming to visit and grandparents’ day and parent-teacher conferences. Even my husband looked a little misty eyed as he said out loud, while reading the packet: “Class pictures? She’s old enough for class pictures?”
“Yes,” I said, smiling as big as the day she was born.
But now it’s late August. And I’ve spent more time researching this damn backpack than I did her infant car seat. And I can’t make up my mind.
Then I thought of the image. Certain images affect all of us. One of mine is the back of a small school-age child wearing a backpack. I have always gotten teary-eyed upon seeing that, even before I had a child. And that’s when it hit me. Once I choose a backpack, and it’s delivered on my doorstep, and I open that box and my daughter — my daughter, the child I have been with almost 24/7 her entire life — tries it on, she’ll be that image. While other moms tear up over first smiles, I’ll be tearing up over a too-big backpack on a very small girl who, seemingly yesterday, was in a soft white onesie asleep on my chest.
It’s a link, the backpack. It’s what she’ll pick up every day on the way to school, empty or filled with last night’s homework, and it’s what she’ll bring home every night, filled with the day’s accomplishments or the night’s to-dos. Its contents will make her smarter, help her grow, teach her things I know and things I don’t. Once she slips those straps around her shoulders, she’ll bear the weight of responsibility: of schedules and work and expectations. She’ll bear the weight of growing old.
Cue that line again — they grow up so fast. But there’s a reason that line exists. It’s because they do. And that’s a good thing; they’re supposed to grow.
So I bought a backpack. And I’ve resigned myself to the fact that even though I’ve been smiling up until now, I will most likely cry as I watch her walk into that building, backpack bobbing behind her, empty, ready to be filled with all the fantastic and mundane knowledge life has to offer. And for what it’s worth, it will be pink — and monogrammed.
Day 2
