Column: A wild ride begins for a kindergartener — and her parents

There was a photo that hung in my childhood home — I want to say it was sepia-toned and one of four arranged in a rectangular frame — of me, mid-stride as I boarded Bus No. 426 in September 1996.

Besides my comically large backpack, one’s eye is drawn to the words “watch your step” displayed as an admonition on the top riser. If memory serves, I did not.

On my first day of kindergarten, I faceplanted as poor Mrs. Thomas (God rest her soul, I’m pretty sure, because she’d be like 100 now) looked on in helpless terror from behind the wheel.

Only now do I fully understand why my parents wanted to capture that moment. On Monday, my wife Katie and I walked our daughter Effie to the corner of Washington and Stuart Streets for her first day of kindergarten as part of Fredericksburg City Schools’ transition days.

Moments earlier, Effie humored us by posing for the requisite “first day” snapshots on our front porch. She displayed a sign proclaiming her love for “cats, bedtime stories and Mama’s brown leggies,” as well as her stated career aspirations to become a “Mail Lady” someday.

Her backpack — weighed down with folders, a lunchbox and a change of clothes (“in case of food or bathroom emergencies”) — threatened to topple her at every turn. As we waited, we were graced by an appearance from “Dude,” a benevolent long-haired outdoor cat known to frequent the block. Effie gave her plenty of pets.

We spotted an equally terrified-looking dad one block away on Pelham Street waiting with his equally carefree daughter. And then, at 7:35 a.m., Bus F-as-in-Frog turned onto Washington and rumbled toward us. Well, not rumbled so much as glided, because it’s an electric vehicle.

After alternating hugs and high fives (Effie doles out affection on her own terms), we let her go. We heard her ask the kindly bus driver, Mr. Bill, something before vanishing behind the veil of tinted windows to begin her scholastic journey.

Everybody asks you the same question.

“Did you cry?”

Neither of us did. We felt weird, maybe a bit helpless? For the next eight hours, she would trip or triumph on her own terms. Probably both, if we’re being honest. I remember an overwhelming urge to make coffee.

By Thursday, Effie demonstrated the nonchalance of a seasoned bus rider. She loves her teachers and specials — and she’s even incorporated some Gen Alpha lingo into her already-expansive vocabulary.

“I almost fell off the bed — on God!” she remarked while monkeying around before bedtime one night.

And no new early-childhood education experience would be complete without an opportunistic virus wreaking havoc on an immune system lulled into a false sense of security during summer break. On Friday morning, as Katie and I were furiously lunch prepping and topping off water bottles, we noticed Effie slumped rather listlessly on the couch.

Her zeal to learn, it seems, could be tempered only by a fever of 102. So we enjoyed one more lethargic, unexpected weekday of summer together. I want to buy shares in Children’s Motrin.

Perfect attendance is overrated anyway.