Bendings, Part Two

Another beginning and ending—a bending. And this one bent my heart in two. I wrote this last week, and I'm still feeling the same.

June 13….

Preschool ended today, and my heart broke. I knew this day was coming, of course. I'd known it since the day I set foot in that small, cozy, parent-participation school three years ago. But graduation seemed eons away on that first day when I dressed my toddler up in her first pair of new-school shoes and walked her through the door.

And somehow, today is that day. The end of preschool. For more than half of her life, my girl has been going to this preschool and it became part of our weekly routine. Having a preschooler, not yet a schoolgirl, meant that my girl could still be considered my baby. I feared jumping on the school train because everyone said that's when time really speeds up and the years scream past. One minute you're attending Back to School Night in kindergarten, and the next you are helping them cram for their senior finals. I'm terrified the next time I pop my head out of the sand to look around, my girl will be driving off to college and I'll be standing dumfounded in the driveway wondering how we got here.

I've been swimming in clichés like that all week. If I heard myself say, "It feels like just yesterday I was touring this school for the first time," I was going to scream. But the truth is, it's all true! It went so fast, and now here I am. At the end.

Our last day was amazing, yet so bittersweet. A field trip to the neighboring train station, cupcakes on the playground, visiting with friends, songs, a collection of artwork given to us by our teacher, a party at a friend's house after school. But throughout it all, I felt disbelief that this was really the end. The moms seemed to be walking through the day in this similar state of disbelief, while the kids couldn't wait to get to the party, have another cookie, talk about "kinnergardin" and new schools. As students said goodbye to their teacher and then ran out of the classroom in a state of summer bliss, the grown ups dabbed their eyes and tried to milk the last minutes for all they were worth. But the day was so busy, I didn't have much time to ponder the reality of all of this. Yet.

Later this afternoon, my girl pulled one of her baby brother's new toys out of the pile and said, "Can I take this for Share Day?" I started to answer, and then realized she wouldn't have another Share Day.

Because today, she graduated from preschool.

And I did what any sane mother does at the moment life slaps her in the face: I started bawling.

Basically, it means my first-born baby is growing up.

This preschool schedule, and my volunteer days spent at the school, became such a routine for us, I feel lost now that they are over. My girl is a winter baby, so she missed the kindergarten cutoff. At any rate, I would have kept her for that bonus year because of the amazing growth and development I witnessed throughout the previous two years at this school with its nurturing teaching staff. And when I find something good and something that works, I want to keep it forever. I'm learning that with kids, this is an impossibility.

My girl was going to grow up, no matter how tightly I hung on.

Like I wrote in my previous blog, parenting is nothing if not a series of beginnings and endings. I hate it. Get used to one phase or stage, and then everything changes. We wrapped preschool into our lives. The vast majority of our friends—mine and my daughter's—came from preschool. When I had my son, the preschool rallied and provided dinners for us for two weeks. TWO weeks! Basically, preschool was a large part of our family's life.

Now that it's over, I feel unbelievably lost. My girl is fine. I'm a wreck.

I remember my girl's first day at the school. I got up early and dressed her in the cutest red and blue dress with matching leggings. Curly blond pigtails stuck out from either side of her head and she carried a new green backpack with her name embroidered on the flap. Her speech skills were still rough back then, as were her potty training talents. She barely reached the top of the classroom doorknob. Leaving her for those three hours seemed foreign to me. I didn't really know what to do with myself. No one cried; it was a surprisingly easy transition. At lunch, when I picked her up, her hair flew in wild waves about her face, a potty accident necessitated a change of clothes and she had sand in her shoes. I'd never seen her so exhausted or satisfied.

From that day on, we were on the preschool bandwagon and we never looked back. I avoided thinking about the end. But today I had to. There wasn't a choice. I stayed with her all day at school today, taking photos of nearly every detail I could in an effort to capture not just the images of this school and her preschool experience, but the feel of it all. The way the morning light entered the classrooms and made them glow. The blue confetti carpet as dark as midnight. The way the guinea pigs nibbled on leftover vegetables. The smell of paint and markers. The endless puzzles and games. The large wooden blocks used to build boats, cars, trains and cities. The small wooden table and chairs. The cubbies on rollers where artwork was placed at the end of the day.

I went into each of the other two classrooms to say goodbye to the other teachers my daughter had in years prior, and memories hit me hard. The entire school leaked memories from every corner. I could see my daughter in every inch of that school. Walking in the front door with me every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Listening to stories next to the pet mouse that seemed to live as long as some cats I know. Sitting at the table rolling homemade clay around or reading a dinosaur book on the big pillow in the corner. Talking to the classroom fish. Playing with the trucks instead of the dolls. Running to the playground. Finally mastering the monkey bars.

It all became too much. This school, and these women whom I entrusted my daughter to every school day, became a part of our lives. They helped shape this amazing, beautiful young girl I am still amazed is mine. I look back at how absolutely tiny and young she was on her first day at school, and it seems incomprehensible to me that today, she is this joking, laughing, foot-taller child. She is no longer my baby. She's now officially an elementary schooler. Will she look back on her preschool years the way I do, with loving fondness? I pull out the dusty memories of my time with Mrs. Zimmerman as some amazing memories. Will my girl? How I hope! 

Enrolling her in kindergarten didn't start this emotional tsunami. Nor did waking up this morning and knowing it would be her last day. It was leaving for the last time. Hearing the gate close, watching the teachers leave. I knew I'd see them again and have the chance, God willing, to have them help shape and influence my son. But it would be different. Not better, not worse. Just different.

For this is my first baby, my first experience with this heartbreaking, torturous beauty known as parenting. I am blessed that my daughter is healthy and able to grow normally and attend school as she should. Of course I am so grateful. Yet I can't deny that a large part of my heart wants to literally hold her in my arms so tightly she can't get any bigger, can't leave my sight, can't start talking like those smartasses on nightly sitcoms. I want to wrap her up and preserve this moment exactly like it is. I want to freeze (damn cliché again!) time right now, with my girl running through the preschool playground laughing carelessly and in a way only the innocent can.

I fear her growing up. My best friend says that every stage has amazing things to cherish. I have to take her word on that. Because now, I'm stuck in the preschool stage. I have my foot jammed in the door and my hands white-knuckling the doorjamb as forces try to pull me out. I don't want to go. A near panic descends upon me as I think about how fast the past three years have gone by, and how fast the next 13 will too. I am frightened about the unknowns of elementary school (will she get a good teacher? Will she make new friends? Will I? Will we all fit in? Did we make the right choice of schools? Will she continue to love school?)  and I mourn the end of her preschool days.

Is that too harsh a word? Mourn? Perhaps. But right now, it feels like a loss. I feel homesick and a bit grief-stricken. I miss the preschool routine, the joy of watching these kids grow and play and say silly things and do even sillier ones. I have no doubt why these three women continue to teach year after year. The chance to have such a strong role in a child's life and to be present at the stage of the preschool theater is an opportunity to treasure.

Yes, it's over and I need to figure out how to deal with it. It does my girl no good to watch me dissolve in tears every time I see a piece of her artwork or read a note from her teacher. Yet I don't know how. Maybe I just need to sit with the sadness for a bit, let it wash over me and then recede like the tide. Maybe this is a clue to parenting: learning how to hold your breath while the bittersweet moments threaten to wash you under.

Basically, the sadness comes not so much from us leaving one school and entering another. It's what that transition means. It means my baby girl is growing up. And as much as I may ache to stop it at times, I can't. Nor do I really want to. I know it's a necessary part of life. And I do look forward with anticipation to see how this beautiful little creature becomes an amazing woman. Each day she unfolds another petal and shows us another side of her blossoming personality.

But for now, I am going to sit with this sadness, this loss, for a bit longer as I try to find my way. I know I still have the memories, the friends, the pictures and videos of our time at preschool. (And the giant tote of artwork.) Yet I need to digest that it's now in our past.  Our past makes up who we are in the present. So this amazing little preschool tucked away inside of a church, the women who nurtured and loved my baby each week, and the friends my sweet girl made will always be a part of us, now and in the future. But oh, how I will miss it being in our present!