First week

Gracie girl.  Here we are just having finished your first week of preschool.  The plan for you to join this school’s program smoothly was a lovely one, with a brief one-on-one introduction to the teacher and classroom the first day, followed by three days of only one hour of class time for you.  Next week you will be there a bit longer and then your regular half days will begin the week after that.  It all sounded so smart that I really didn’t take any time to consider whether I would have any feelings about this new period in your life.  In fact, I sort of smugly assumed I would be fine.  I don’t know why, but I really didn’t think it would be hard.  You are so social and open to people and you’ve really never had a hard time with leaving us, so I thought the normal obstacles wouldn’t present themselves in our situation.  Which they didn’t. Or at least, these particular obstacles didn’t.

Instead, the annoying little troll of uncertainty has been what has plagued me this week, despite my total confidence in both you and your school.  Is it a nurturing enough environment for you?  Is it the right fit for your very inquisitive nature? Perhaps most importantly, will they see that they have a tiny being of unsurpassed kindness, joviality, beauty and brains in their midst and worship – er, I mean treat - you accordingly?

I have cried, my Gracie, more times than I care to admit in this past week.  And yet every day you have walked out of class with your teacher and reported that you were thrilled to have been in the surroundings you were in, all while clearly still adjusting to your new environment.  You immediately ask me when you will be going back.  Even the day when you had to apologize to your assistant teacher because you got her coffee down from the counter and filled it up with water didn’t seem to faze you too much.

So here I am, wringing my hands over every little detail you share with me, trying to figure out if we have made the right choice.  And by the way, I have a sneaking suspicion that about 75% of these details are made up or cobbled together from different things throughout the day, because that is what you do when you are three (or maybe just when you are YOU) and all the memories don’t iron themselves out so smoothly in your mind just yet.   Of course I know, have always known, that the day would come when you began interacting with the world on your own, independently of me.  I know it has been a true privilege to be with you almost all day, each day for the last three years.  I knew it, but that didn’t mean I could know how it would make me feel like I needed to wrench your little hand out of the teacher’s, make a mad dash for the door, and keep you in the house with me until the world gives me an iron-clad guarantee that you will be safe out there in it without me. Because that is what I need here, friends. Iron clad.

I get it.  It’s only a few hours a day.  To many, such theatrics might seem ludicrous, obsessive, or self-serving, particularly when so many parents have to or choose to send their children “into the world” so much earlier.  Grace: believe me when I say to you YES.  It is all of those things, but knowing that doesn’t make it easier right now.

In this post there is that picture of you and Noah holding hands as you excitedly wait for your teacher to come get you, and then the next one is just of him watching you go.  Like he’s thinking, Hey, what just happened? Don’t I get to come, too?  All I can say Noah is: I feel you, little brother.  It’s a whole new world for us both.  Amazing, terrifying, and everything in between.

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