Preschool Diaries, Vol. 1

This is our first week without preschool. The lil' dude is OK. I couldn't love the stark difference in her first and last days of preschool this year, as indicated above, any more than I do. Day 1, so so SO pumped and Day 100, so so SO sad. What you don't know is, she was fine on her last day, her sadness actually emanated from it being Community Trash Day in our neighborhood, and when she looked to the curb, she saw her "favorite yellow mop" Daddy added to the garbage pile. You know, the broken, plastic mop that has been stowed in our rafters since 2004 ... the one she never set eyes on until that morning. She lost her shit. Now that is a great backstory, am I right? Moving on ....

We loved Preschool each step of the way. This is the little email note her teacher sent on beginnings and ends. I couldn't have written it better. We sent our baby to that school, and picked up our girl. There wasn't a single day she didn't want to go, even if there were days she stripped out of her hoodie when it was 8* out to be in her tiny camisole at pickup; days she would take off her shoes and sit backwards during circle time, and definitely days she refused to share. But, that is life and we all have days like that. She's just learning that early on. Life is about adapting when you think you can't, giving when you're spent, and trying to acknowledge the happy in-betweens.

The lil' dude loved seeing her parents at family day the final day of school. This is truly her excited face for everything in life. It reminds me of her infancy, how she'd always start gnawing on her chubby little hands when obviously excited. I love her classmates around her, in varying states of cooperation, shock, awe, composure. That's 20 four-year-olds for you.

This summer will slow down a bit for our family and I think everyone is ready for that. Less mornings trying to get someplace on time, remembering that flip-flops are not school appropriate, and if it's snack day for us or not. We're going to use each color sidewalk chalk down to its nubs, eat too many ice cream cones, hit all five parks in our neighborhood with regularity, swim 'til we're weary (and pruny!), visit Camp Grandma, bathe the Beagle with the garden hose, cut fresh rhubarb, welcome new "sisters" to our village, finish entire bottles of nail polish, fill up that brat club card at the meat market, and revel in spontaneity.

And try not to think about the Kindergarten that's not happening in September nor the bus that will not be picking her up for a whole other year.