Day 10: Off To School She Goes

Today, my baby started preschool. Word is she wasn’t too happy about it. I can understand her trepidation in heading off to a strange, new place. She has a cushy life at home, a place she’s spent pretty much every morning of her short life doing what kids should do in the morning: eating a good breakfast, playing, watching some “Little Bear,” coloring, riding her trike, and doing whatever else the day brings her way. Now, she’s being forced to leave all that behind for a world where she has to share everything. Ugh, the horror. She’s entering a land where little creatures with itty bitty hands and fingers and boundless enthusiasm and energy are about to surround her in masses—a far cry from bleary-eyed adults she usually spends mornings with drowning coffee down their gullets instead of Juicy Juice.

Despite her misgivings, I couldn’t be more excited. My girl is bright and well-spoken and can reason and communicate beyond her years. She is that way because she’s 10 years younger than the next oldest child, and she’s surrounded by adults and teenagers nearly every day, meaning she has a steady diet of older people around who talk differently than toddlers; who are taller, faster, and grumpier than toddlers; who have less patience than toddlers; who don’t fit into spaces that toddlers do. In many ways, I’d say the adults she’s around are also less well-behaved than toddlers.

I’m excited for my little girl to be around other little people all morning doing what little people do. I’m excited for her to play and learn and watch and listen and interact with little people, not adults who dictate where she goes and why and when. My aim with this child is to keep her a kid for as long as possible. My older children grew up too fast. It was hard to slow them down. It was hard to convince them that all they found tempting in the world would still be there for them later on. It was harder convincing them that some of the things they found tempting weren’t everything they’re cracked up to be. I want my preschooler to live each second as a preschooler and do the same in every grade thereafter. As odd as it might seem, I love that she’s starting preschool and temporarily getting away from the people who love her the most.