We Made it This Far

Last week was Emma’s first week in the full time preschool classroom. She is still at the same school but has moved from the two year old classroom to the 3/4 year old classroom. Already after a week, I feel like her vocabulary has exploded even more. In fact just the other day, I asked her to come to the table for dinner. She spun around and looked at me and using air quotes said, "mommy I am working on a “project” right now. I will be there in a minute.” Ummm who did she learn air quotes from?  Don’t get me wrong, the 2 year olds were fun and all, but these older kids are real chatter boxes, full of questions and opinions. They are certain of themselves and hold such a refreshing (yet sometimes hard to work with) self-confidence. I hope they don’t let life ruin that wonderful quality.

I look back on the journey we went on to get here and while it has only been 3 years in the making, it has nonetheless been a journey of major milestones, heartbreaks, and incredible accomplishments. I remember back to Emma’s first few months at daycare and how I couldn’t bear to leave her. I would visit her on my lunch break every day and race to pick her up the minute the clock hit 3:30pm. She wasn’t a very good napper and she had to always be sitting up to see what was going on. In many ways, being a baby didn’t agree with Emma. I understand it wasn’t her thing but I also feel like I didn’t get enough time with her as a baby. She walked at 10 months and started talking right around then too. And as soon as she started moving she never stopped.

I remember the last time I went to visit her at daycare during my lunch break. She was going through separation anxiety and I knew I would not be able to stop in and see her during the day anymore because it caused both of us too much emotional stress. It was a sad but necessary moment. We finally cut the invisible umbilical cord to live our separate lives. It's true if you think about it no two people, no matter how much time they spend together encounter the same life experiences and I didn't realize it until after I had her but we were destined to live our own experiences. Drop offs went from easy to difficult, to nearly impossible, and then back to manageable again. Eventually, she moved into the toddler room. Sometimes I would catch a glimpse of her class at the playground out the window of my building. I loved watching her run and play and seeing her interact with the other kids. I got the opportunity to see her enjoying her day when I otherwise wouldn't have. The next thing I knew, she moved into her first two year old classroom. At this point, she had become fiercely independent. I remember going to see her for their Halloween party and she was upset that I came. I wasn’t supposed to be there I guess. Well, who really understands the logic of a two year old?

And finally now, she is in a preschool room at a new school where she will learn her letters and all sorts of new exciting things. They have a hamster, turtles, birds, and fish in her classroom. They will be doing show and tell once a week to develop their public speaking skills. They will go to the pumpkin patch and have a Christmas pageant and all sorts of wonderful other activities that big kids get to do. She has become so well adjusted to her school that I actually feel bad picking her up now because I am taking her away from time she has to play with her friends. She has real little friends! I never thought we would get to this point. I am definitely going to hold onto these next two years. I understand this is a special time before homework piles up after school and classmates become overwhelming, before she is just a tiny fish in a huge system, before the number of sports and instruments she plays is a big deal, before her thrift store clothes are no longer good enough, before she doesn’t want me to kiss her good bye. But for right now, I am proud of us all as a family, we made it this far.