What can I say? Spiderman has officially started preschool. And I can tell you...H. and I were bored to tears until his return. As if it weren't bad enough starting one child...now I have 2 children gone and that is more than half of my offspring. But you could not imagine a more excited 4 year old.
It all started last night when I found him lying in bed at 10:30 p.m. still staring at the ceiling of his bedroom with a big, happy grin on his face. Then he came in at 4:00 a.m. and again at 6:00 a.m. to ask if it were time to go to preschool yet. Finally his alarm clock went off at 7:00 a.m. and by 7:02 a.m. he was standing at the side of our bed, fully dressed wearing his Spiderman backpack, bed made, room cleaned up, asking if it was time to go yet! It really was a contagious, "something really big is about to happen" kind of feeling!
After chicken nuggets and mandarin oranges for breakfast (his choice), we all piled in to the car and drove the boy to preschool. He is going to school where J. attends so it is a very grown up feeling to be whisked away to the "big kid" school. He got out of the car clutching the straps of his backpack, grabbed my hand, and bravely started marching for the entrance. We had packed his extra set of clothes and underwear and a "light" snack and he kept asking to make sure I hadn't forgotten to put those things in his backpack.
We entered the preschool door and M. clutched my hand as we walked over to find the hook with his name. He hung up his crisp, new backpack and quickly wandered over to the table where the kids were working on an "M" paper...now this was a good omen since his name starts with "M" and it happens to be his "very favorite letter"! M. got to work and suddenly C. and I were very out of place accessories in the preschool room. Both of us let out a little sigh and then C. said, "Well, I guess that's it. Should we go?" I don't know what we were waiting for. We desperately didn't want him to be sad or nervous about us leaving...but maybe we were hoping he would be a TINY bit nervous or sad about seeing us go. It is the realization that he was completely ready but as his parents, we weren't quite ready to see him be so grown up and independent.
OK, so I haven't lost touch with the fact that we are talking about preschool here, not college but it still has gone so fast and our Spiderman is going to be 5 years old in a month. It was a great moment seeing him march into preschool but one tinged with a little bit too much reality. Those kids that you think are NEVER going to get any older are suddenly a little bit older and so much changes in the blink of an eye. I have to admit I was really, really happy to go pick him up. And it was the most fabulous ride home from school with M. in the back seat telling me all the wonders of his first day in preschool. It is his OWN experience that only he will be able to share with us and I could tell really quickly how much this was going to mean to him.I can't wait to share every minute with him!
