I've been feeling a mixture of melancholy and excitement when I think about the next week.
Edie "graduates" from her daycare today, has her last day of daycare tomorrow when she will also bring cupcakes and games for a birthday party with her daycare friends, she turns 4 on Friday and then starts her new school on Wednesday next week. She was a little traumatized when I started her in daycare at 22 months, but even then, I didn't experience any of the concerns that are currently keeping me awake: will she miss her old friends at daycare? For how long? Will it be hard to make new friends? Will the kids be nice to her, will they invite her to sit with them at lunch, play with them at recess? Will she love her new teachers as much as she's grown to love and trust Jen? Will she be too shy to ask for the bathroom in her new school? Will she like the lunches I pack her or will her lunch box come back full and her belly empty? At what age do kids start being mean about what's in your packed lunch?
Commence spin-out.
When she was nearing 2, my main concern was whether she would be safe. Now I've added this momentous list of other worries to the list. I suppose this will never end. I can't even fathom the weird feelings that sending your kid off to college must induce.
Ultimately, everything will work out, I just have never been great at waiting for ... well, ANYTHING. I'm much happier just diving in and living in the uncomfortable place of "transition" than anticipating it. Edie is apparently the same because she has been too pumped to sleep the last few days. Last night she actually left her room and tried to come downstairs after being tucked in - for the first time EVER. Then at what must have been 3am she woke up and just wanted to shoot the shit with Jeff. And then she woke promptly at 6:45 (early for her) and asked if she could play with the games I bought for her to bring to daycare tomorrow for her birthday. Which, in case anyone is keeping track, we had a 30 minute fight about just yesterday. Because DUDE, the answer is NO.
Obviously, I'm also so incredibly excited for all these new things. We got Edie's class assignment and it came with a school calendar that got me all pumped for "crazy hair day" and "school spirit day" and all the new and amazing experiences Edie is bound to have this year. I looked at each name on her class list and wondered, "Will this name become part of our every day vocabulary in the way that her current classmates/friends are?" And also, is Gibbie a girl or a boy name? Probably everyone is looking at Edie's name on the list and thinking her name is Eddie, so oh well...
Here's hoping Edie's lack of sleep doesn't leave her a total wreck today for her "field day" and "moving on" party this afternoon...
1 comment:
"can't even fathom the weird feelings that sending your kid off to college must induce".... I am sure you will have different feelings than I am having, but Lincoln went off to Kent State a week ago. The quiet has been nice; although for three straight weeks before departing I would come home to a million questions about paperwork and college and for the last two weeks before she left we were spending every other evening at Target (not buying clothes).
I didn't cry until she had been gone for three days, but I am sure I will cry more when we go up for Parents' weekend in two weeks and I see all her stuff set up in some strange foreign dorm room.
But she is so excited in fact to use your word, She is PUMPED. As I am sure Miss Edie will be too. Best of Luck on the new transition.
Thinking about you gals~
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