It’s been an eventful week around here.
Tristan graduated from preschool!
His face, as he walked down the aisle sporting his paper graduation cap, was beaming with pride. He waved to us with a huge grin plastered across his face, proud of himself for reaching this milestone and so happy to have his family all there to witness.
It was a special morning. I will even admit to shedding a few tears as he marched down the aisle with his classmates to the melodies of “Pomp and Circumstance.”
Yeah, I know. It’s just preschool. It’s just that to me this graduation was so symbolic. He started out a 2.5 year old toddler, not yet able to fully express himself in a voice that still very much carried notes of babyhood. He’s now an energetic 4 year old with his own thoughts and ideas and dreams of becoming a pilot and a lambscaper (er… that’s landscaper.)
It’s an event like this that propels my mind forward. I imagine all the accomplishments and graduations that await us. I think about the kind, conscientious boy I am trying to raise, knowing that one day he will be a father, a husband. And most close to home, I think about the first day of kindergarten, sneaking up on us oh so quickly.
This morning I had to stop for a school bus as a little girl was getting on, and I imagined Tristan on his first morning of school, walking up those steps, wearing his new little backpack, bravely looking back to wave, and I know I’ll feel it welling up inside.
I’ll hold it in, myself bravely smiling and waving back, but as soon as the doors close and the bus drives away, I know they will come.
The tears. I know they will come.
Tears of pride that my big boy is going off to school and starting a new adventure.
Tears of sadness that our days won’t be spent together anymore.
Like any mother, I have some worries. I wish that I could just protect him from the world forever. But I know that that’s not the way it is. I know that my job is to prepare him to go off and be strong and kind and friendly and generous and fun loving and adventurous…
Yet I worry about not being there when he falls down on the playground and scrapes himself. I know someone will give him a band-aid and send him back on his way. But I won’t be there to kiss his knee.
I worry about the first time he feels the sting of someone not being kind to him on the playground.
I love my boy so much. Why wouldn’t everyone want to be kind to him and be his friend? But I know that’s not the way the world works and kids can be mean.
All I can do is love him and teach him that he is kind and capable and deserving… and the rest shall fall into place.
Tags: graduation, nursery school, preschool
A Mom Like Me 
Leave a Reply