The Last Summer Before Kindergarten

It's the last Summer before kindergarten, and it's the same as any other.

You'll come home from preschool every day smelling sweetly like sunblock and dirt. We'll do our best to plant a nice garden in the front yard and you'll beg me to let you water it every morning as you say hello to the flowers on our way out the door. You'll help me replenish the bird feeder with bird seed and get excited when the dropped sunflower seeds actually sprout sunflowers.

I'll head to work every day, silently cursing the fact that I have to go. Kindergarten was the deadline I set for myself. "By the time Mason starts Kindergarten, I will be working for myself" I said. That deadline approached much faster than expected. Time went by much faster than expected. How are you 5 years old already?

Our evenings will be filled with soccer practices, frozen yogurt dates, and playing in the yard. We’ll light sparklers just for fun and have an ample supply of glow sticks for when it gets dark.

We'll take vacations. We don't go far, but our small weekends away are something we look forward to all year. You have no concept of distance yet, so our 2 hour drive to the beach seems much farther.

It's the last Summer before Kindergarten, and I'm not sad. It doesn't feel like the end of an era, it feels like a new beginning.

Being a working mom means that I've already gone through the first "dropping you off" experience. My first day after maternity leave feels like yesterday. You were one. I remember driving 15 minutes to the only daycare that had availability at the time. You had your new SkipHop book bag, lunch box and were clutching your bottle. The daycare teacher was cold and unwelcoming, and didn't care about the long list of instructions I had created for her. I stayed as long as I could before having to leave for work. You cried when I left and I cried the entire day off and on. You didn't stay at that daycare long, and we've had 4 years of daycare and preschool experience together since then, so on the first day of Kindergarten, I won't cry, because I know we're both ready. 

I'm excited for you to make new friends and for you to excitedly tell me about your day when I pick you up. I'm excited for warm days where I get to walk you to and from school, and we can talk about the trees and the houses, and the sticks and rocks we find along the way.

I want you to know that I'm always present and interested in your life. I want to be at the school events, and I want to go on the field trips. I want to help organize the bake sales and fundraisers, just like I helped organize every other event in your life. Kindergarten isn't something to dread, it's something for us to be excited for and take on together. 

Just like every other year, Kindergarten will breeze by, and we'll be back to Summer. It will be the same as any other.