preschool?!?!

E with her new backpack and Sebastian the crab (who came along for the ride).

It wasn't supposed to happen until next fall.  But upon touring a preschool, we found out they had an opening left in their lower campus for kids 2-3 years old.  And after seeing Ella light up at all the activities the school had to offer, we decided to enroll her.

So now, I am a parent to a preschooler.  How did we get here so soon?  I'm completely not ready and am pretty emotional about this, despite the fact that it's only twice a week for 2 1/2 hours each day.  But I've never left her in the care of anyone besides our immediate family.  So I'm a wreck about it, but trying to stay upbeat and cheerful so that Ella doesn't pick up on my anxiety.

This post is late in coming because we left for a trip to Seattle the day after her first day.  I decided to stay with her during that day because we would be gone another week before her next class, and I wasn't ready for the tearful separation.  I thought she did pretty well, and started to feel like I could just drop her off next time, until we moved rooms to start other activities and she refused to go without me.  I realized I was going to have to take a different approach, but the idea of her crying for me in the presence of strangers is too hard for me to swallow.  I think I'll have to do a slow ease vs. ripping the bandaid off, but who knows.  I can never say never when it comes to parenting, and a week from now I might be talking about how I walked out the door leaving a bawling child behind.

Parenting sucks sometimes.

But then I think about all the growing she'll do at school, and from being independent from me.  Ella is a timid child and incredibly shy around strangers.  With family and friends she's an outgoing ham.  But she's quiet and an observer--much like I was as a child.  So I sympathize with her.  And I try not to project my insecurities and my childhood struggles onto her.  She is her own person.  She will learn to carve her own way.  She will be okay.

It still doesn't make the prospect of her crying easier for me to digest.  And it hasn't even come to that yet.

While staying with her at school I immediately started to judge the other kids.  I mentally willed her to befriend the "nice" kids, you know, the quieter ones that were like her.  I quickly dismissed the loud little girl who started to climb the bookcase and boss people around.  And the little boy who hissed at other children who came too close to him and stomped around taking things just sent me into mama bear mode.  But I know that while I can fight Ella's battles now, I won't be able to do it later.  It might just be about a plastic cupcake or a tonka truck right now, but eventually the battles with become bigger and more significant.  I know I need to prepare my child for the road ahead and not the road for my child.  For her sake, I need to step back and trust in her.

Again, parenting sucks sometimes.

But tonight at dinner, out of nowhere, E says that she likes preschool.  And I hope she really means it.  Because this is a journey we have committed to.  And this is a journey that will challenge us and change us.  Not to sound melodramatic or anything; it's just that I thought I had another year to come to terms with the fact that my little baby girl really isn't a baby anymore.  Yep, and this is just preschool.  I'm in for quite a ride...