Five years. That’s how long we’ve been at our preschool. Three kids, one year on the computer, one year masked in a pandemic, and three blissful, “normal” years with two wonderful teachers in one amazing preschool. Time passed more quickly than I ever knew it possibly could, and now my baby, my third child, is graduating. How do I say goodbye?
I have anticipated this moment all year long. It’s annoying to have the kind of anxiety that makes you anticipate the future for an entire school year, but anytime I thought of my daughter finishing her last year of preschool, I got emotional. Every time we reached another celebration at school—the Halloween party, the Christmas party, and then the Valentine’s Day party—it was just a reminder of another last, of how fast the school year was going.
Now there is one more day of preschool left. It doesn’t seem possible that my little baby, born into a pandemic seemingly yesterday, is old enough to go to kindergarten. Here we are, with kindergarten registration complete.
We have been incredibly fortunate to be at a preschool that feels like a family. My daughter’s teachers are the only teachers at the school, teaching both the preschool and prekindergarten classes, and they have literally watched all three of my kids grow up. We have become friends with families who have also sent multiple children there, and I look forward to seeing the same faces three mornings a week. I still can’t imagine driving by the preschool in the fall and realizing I don’t have a reason to stop.
How do you say goodbye to the people who have helped shape your child in the most critical early childhood years? Teachers who have dried my kids’ tears on nerve-wracking first days, and celebrated them when they came out of their shells. Teachers who never have anything less than a smiling face at pickup and drop off, and make a point to “hold students in their hearts” (a saying they’ve taught my daughter during morning circle time) anytime a friend is home from school, sick.
While three kids at the same school will bring us into a new chapter, it also takes us out of the comfort of the preschool bubble, and I’m so sad.
My mama heart doesn’t feel ready. How will I say goodbye?
