They're Just Trying to Make the Moms Cry

I swear, half the stuff set up for parents and kids are designed solely to make moms cry. And I'm not a crier! I didn't even cry at the movie Beaches, even though everyone else in the room was a blubbering mess.

Yesterday was a big day around here. The Boy had his Primary Orientation, which is the day they have all the 'newbies' come to Big School to get familiar with it before school starts in September. They also assess the kids to see where everyone will fit and assign teachers and classrooms accordingly. For parents of kids who are just starting for the first time, it's a chance to meet the teachers, and start to get a feel for this whole "school" thing.

Now, we aren't total newbies... The Boy went to preschool when he was three, and now attends a daycare with a preschool program, with a focus on learning and schedules and taking turns and working in groups -- all the things kids need before they start school.

And yet, taking my little boy into that big building with all the classrooms and big kids and a cafeteria and library... Aren't those things for big kids? Like, teenagers? Exciting, for sure. But big... a big deal, this whole school thing. And I really can't believe, as most parents have echoed, that the time is here already. How have 5 years gone by so quickly? It's really not possible... is it?

I've been told once kids start school, time speeds up even more. Everything goes in fast-forward and before long, your little boy with his brand-new backpack and pencil case and his name in his shoes is getting his driver's license and graduating from High School. I think that's what's getting me about him starting school -- it's not that going to Primary is so heartwrenching, it's the reminder that you can't stop time, and your kids just keep growing up. Exciting... but...

And then, the principal read us parents a poem, which I guarantee was just to get us all to cry. I was FINE up to that point. It was just orientation! Not like he's really starting school... yet... I held it together watching him walk to the front of the room and go off with 20 other kids to check out the classrooms, without us, like a big boy. But when the principal said to get our tissues ready, and began to read this poem about handing our kids over to the capable teachers and not being able to watch everything they do and achieve... well I admit I welled up.

We still have a few months before The Big Day (which we're told we're not supposed to make a huge hairy deal of so as not to scare the kids... HA!!), and then I will be a total mess. Until then, I'm enjoying every minute of my "preschooler" kid.

Okay, not every minute. I love him... but come on. :)