She’s so big
My baby, my littlest girl, my pumpkin pie — she’s going to start school for the first time tomorrow. I’m not sure how to feel about it. I’ve been pretty matter-of-fact about it since I’ve done this before but now as the time ticks away I’m getting more and more verklempt. She’s even more matter-of-fact about it since she told me today that I can drop her off and just come home until she’s done. I laughed. Gracie was the exact same way. I remember taking Gracie to her first day of three year-old preschool and she got out of the van and told me she’d see me later. I laughed and asked her if she thought maybe I should show her where her classroom was first. She agreed that was a good idea.
I go with Iz tomorrow for an hour and they are calling it Open House. She goes again for an hour on Wednesday but I don’t stay and then she settles into her normal two-hour routine next week. I wouldn’t mind her starting off at the regular schedule right off the bat but I know that there are kids who will have a very hard time separating who will need this slower transitioning. Iz will be especially fine since she’ll probably be the oldest in her class. Being that she was born after the cutoff date, she started a year later. Had she been born a couple weeks earlier she’d be on her second year but I wonder how much different it would’ve been starting at barely three rather than almost four. Oh well. The only difference that it makes is that she was home with me a year longer. Almost all of the kids hit the same level in kinder and first grade. I always chuckle at the parents of the kids they self-peg as geniuses in preschool. Yeah, my technically “retarded” son knew his letters and numbers out of order by sight (i.e. not by rote memory) at two. My daughter who was speaking in sentences by 15 months didn’t know all her letters going in to preschool because I was so busy with her brother and his challenges. As you can imagine she’s fine now. 
Off to bed I go. Tomorrow will be quite a day. Another chapter ends and a new one begins. That’s heavy, man.
