Kindergarten Already?

It's something that creeps up on you. How is it that we already have a child old enough to be headed off to Kindergarten in the fall? To say it is difficult is an vast understatement.

As a stay at home mom, it's the first time in my life that one of my children will spend more time being taught by someone other than me. He's going out in the world and I have to relinquish my control over his little life. That doesn't sound exactly right, I know, but it's true. For the past five years, I've been able to mold him to speak the way I want him to speak, to interact with others the way I think he should, to rest when I can see he is tired, to play when his behaviors indicate he needs to blow off steam. In a few short months those things are going to be much less under my control and much more under his own (or his teacher's) control. And that's a hard bite to swallow. It's the first time in his life that he's really going out on his own and I can't do anything to stop it.

My mind says I shouldn't want to do anything to stop it because it's part of life, but my heart says, "Hold on to him! Don't let him go! He's never going to be home again the way he has been in his first five years."

This fall we will have one little boy in Kindergarten, one little boy in Preschool, and one little girl home with mama still. How did I go from having three little ones at home to just one again?

Thank goodness I have a few more months to wrap my brain (and my heart) around all of these changes.

On a technical note, did you know you have to have like 47 forms of identification in order to register for Kindergarten? You have to have the child's birth certificate, your mortgage statement/deed/lease, a utility bill, your driver's license, a record of vaccinations, a dental exam filled out by a dentist, a physical exam, and I think there were some other things, but they're slipping my mind right now. You also have to make an appointment with the registrar to appear in person and file your paperwork. It's a little ridiculous. But it's done. And I have two more years before I have to do it again. Better start getting Aaron's paperwork together right now.