Preschool

The day I have been dreading for a while finally came last week. I have been a selfish mother and have not enrolled Tylie in preschool because I was not ready for it. But, since I found a school that I liked and I realized that Tylie was really ready for it, I enrolled her. I hate to face facts but the hard truth is that she is going to go to kindergarten next year five days a week so I am looking at this preschool this as somewhat of a parachute to my nosedive I will take with kindergarten. I am hoping that it will break my fall slightly and get my heart calloused to the pain of my baby being gone.
I was worried about Ty because she is very mild and will not shove her way into any spotlight. She tends to hang back around a lot of kids and I have been worried that she will get lost in the backround of her class. She has a friend in her class and I am relieved that he is there to pull her along a little bit.
When we went to meet her teacher a few days before school started, she immediately crawled into her shy shell and my heart shattered. How was I going to leave her if she was going to hate it? The only was this was going to be possible for me was if she went bounding into class and didn't look back. My stomach was in knots worried sick that she would hate it and, in turn, hate me for subjecting her to such a place. When the morning came, she was excited. I couldn't tell if she was really excited to go to school or if she was just excited to wear her new school clothes. I did everything a mom should do. I did made sure all her clothes were perfectly clean and wrinkle free, I did her hair in her favorite "princess" hair do, I took pictures of her before she left the house, and I broke out the video camera so I could remember my emotional roller coaster ten years from now. I choked back tears as I drove that sad route. I put on a smile as we marched in to the school hand in hand. I let her hand go and watched her stride ahead of me in the hall so she could feel independent and confident that she knew where her class was. I peeked around the corner as she sat at a desk and got started on a project for her teacher. She looked up and saw me. With a goofy grin on her face, she waved goodbye and turned back to her coloring. I ducked out and pinned myself to the wall. I repeated a mantra in my head over and over telling myself that she was ready and to let her go. My arms ached to reached through that wall and grab her but my head won and I sulked out the door. Once I was safely in my car, I could let it all go. I sat in the parking lot with Mason in the back seat quiet as a mouse. He patiently waited for the tears to stop so I could see to go home. After the tears finally quit flowing, I turned to Mason and him and I made a firm pact that he would not grow up and leave me like his sister did. I know he agreed because I told him to slap me five if he was ok with that and he promptly placed his little hand on mine.
I know what you are thinking. It is preschool. Only three days a week. And you are right. 3 days a week for 2 hours at a time. No big deal. Here is the real problem though. That night, after Jake got home, we were talking about Tylie's first day at preschool. She was snuggled up in bed and we were talking about how well she did. I explained to Jake my tears and told him I feel silly acting this way. I should be able to control these stupid emotions. He sighed and said, " The real problem is that this is the beginning of it all." Yes, he is absolutely right. The beginning of growing up. School, dancing, girlfriend drama, mean girls at school. She is no longer completely sheltered by me. The beginning of it all. Let the tears flow...