Weird Week

This has been a weird week for me.  I am mourning the last week of summer.  Yes, you heard me right, I have LOVED this summer and so sad it is ending.  It really has flown by and I cant believe we are in the last days.  I am not sure if its the cooler weather or that we had two trips planned to break up the summer or just that the boys are at such a fun age that it has made things so much easier.


I am also incredibly anxious about the week ahead.  I can sum it up in one word--KINDERGARTEN.
All I have known as a parent is laid back days, making plans with friends during the week, planning fun outings, being in charge of our schedule. Sure, we have done preschool for four years now, but it was just a few days a week, if we were late, eh who cares, and by 1pm everyone was home.  If we wanted to keep the boys home for a day to leave town or do something fun it was perfectly fine.  Our whole family dynamic feels like it is about to change.  Our nice quiet, lazy mornings are about to become something like this:  WAKE UP!  GET DRESSED!!!!  PUT YOUR SHOES ON! PUT YOUR SHOES ON! PUT YOUR SHOES ON! BRUSH YOUR TEETH!  COME ON, WE ARE GOING TO BE LATE, WHY AREN'T YOUR SHOES ON?!?!?!!!?!?!? And out the door by (gulp) 7:25 am.  As silly as it sounds, it is shaking up everything I have ever known about being a mom. Our days are going to start early and will be filled responsibility.
In just a few days, Eli will be going to Kindergarten. I need to choke back tears multiple times a day.  It feels like just yesterday Blaine and I were saying "can you believe in 3 years he will be in school" or "this time next year Eli will be in school!" and now, here we are, buying you colored folders and scissors and pencils to start school.

I haven’t a clue how I will feel or act but I do know that when the door closes and I get that last glimpse of you for seven hours, you’ll crowd my thoughts: what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, if you’re OK, if you’re eating your lunch and using your manners, if you miss me and your brothers and your dad.

I read somewhere that the hardest part of releasing your child to elementary school — or any new experience — is realizing that you must give them up to the less-than-perfect world that awaits you.  Its scary out there.  And I am now putting him in the care of others and he wont be in our little protected shell.  You will hear things I wish you wouldn't, learn about things I am not ready for, and you will learn that the world isn't perfect and probably lose some innocence and purity.
I dont feel like I am ready for all this. I dont know if he feels ready either, its hard to tell exactly what he is feeling. Excited would not be a word I would use to describe him.

What if you get lost? What if someone picks on you? What if you need help and the teacher doesn't notice you in the sea of 20 other children.  What if you are sad?  What if something bad happens at your school?

 But I know he will be awesome!  He will have a blast! And I will learn to live with the fact that my little first born son is growing up too fast!