Preschool Is Approaching

As most of you already know Carter will start three year old preschool this year. It will be two days a week from 9:30-12. When we first enrolled Carter and then found out he got a spot, we had 6 months until the first day of school. Now we are one month away with his open house on September 1st and his first day of school on the 6th. I am excited for him because I know he will grow and learn so much, make new friends, and love it so much. I'm also super emotional. It's not exactly the thought that he will be away from me for 2.5 hours twice a week that gets me going. It's knowing that once school starts, it never ends. Once he begins this journey it will continue on until high school graduation and then, hopefully, college. Each year it will become more involved, he will become more independent, and there will be more activities outside of school that will take away from his time at home. I understand that it is a natural progression and as a parent part of my job is to foster independence. I get that. But it doesn't exactly make it any easier watching your first child begin the journey that will eventually end with him leaving you. I love him so much it hurts.

I want Carter to have the best experience and to love school. I want him to make friends easily and enjoy his teacher. I know there will be tough days. I know there will be days he comes home in tears or days I drop him off with tears. I taught first grade for 6 years and even at that age there were kids who would come to school crying for the first week or so. I know that is all natural and likely to occur with a more sensitive child. I'm prepared for it, but I know it will still be hard. To prepare for school and to get Carter super excited I'm planning a school learning theme. I think it will get me excited as well. What keeps me from getting too emotional is knowing I will have one-on-one time with Elise while Carter is in school. Thank goodness for that! While I was browsing the internet looking for free printables for our first day of preschool photos I came across these. (I'm still looking because that will use a lot of black ink!) But there it was all 14 years of school pictured in front of me. It made me sad how short of an amount of time it appeared to be when each first day page was pictured right next to the other in neat little rows. I know just how fast this time is going to fly by. So right after looking at that page and picturing Carter holding a sign on the first day of 12th grade, I snuck back into his room to peek at his sweet sleeping face, still sucking his thumb. Sometimes I need that reminder that he is still my little baby. I'm going to hold onto that as long as I can.