Kindergarden now? I need a drink but so does he.

Boy 1 is turning 5 this May.  I don't really need a drink, I only drink beer.  When your a beer drinker, you don't have those cool "get me a scotch" moments.  But I digress.

My wife Norma and I have the tough decision of sending boy 1 to kindergarden this coming Sept or holding him til Sept 2011.  It seems like an easy decision.  Is he ready?  Probably.  Would he be more ready next year.  Maybe.

If it is such an easy decision, why am I having so much trouble with it.

Obviously, I want him to go as early as possible for many reasons.  He has a blast at preschool and I think he would have a blast at kindergarden.  However, think about this.  If we send him this year, he would be 5 all school year and would turn 6 right at the end of kindergarden.  If you do the math, that means he would turn 16 at the end of his sophomore year and turn 18 at the end of his senior year of high school.  More importantly, he would turn 21 at the end of his junior year of college. 

This seems very trivial to the untrained person and who knows if he will even go to college.  I hope he does but who knows.  Norma has a July birthday and her parents sent her early, I have a November birthday so it wasn't an issue.  When Norma and I were in college together, I turned 21 so I could go to the bars with my friends.  But Norma had to wait til the end of that same year and missed out on so many things.  She was a younger 21 then all of our friends.

BUT, if her parents had held her back and let her be 21 when all of her friends were then she would have been in a different class, gone to college at a different time and been a year behind me in school, we probably would not have met or got married and we wouldn't have had 3 wonderful children together.

The point being, we are not deciding if boy 1 is ready for kindergarden, we are deciding when he can drive, who his friends will be, who he will marry, and what kind of kids he will have. 

That is a much heavier decision, don't you think?

I just keep thinking about Norma.  My beautiful wife.  My reason for everything.  What if she was a year behind me in school.  No L Section, no convertible, no City of Angels, no no kiss, no wedding when we were too young, no boy 1, no boy 2, and no girl.

What if?

I still think we will hold him a year so he is more ready and its always better to be older in your class vs being the youngest, but doesn't that blow your mind?