Last year at this time, I saw many of my friends' Facebook status updates that mentioned how they just registered their son/daughter for kindergarten, with lots of exclamation points. I figured I'd be just as excited when our time came. Wow, how wrong I was!
Today I am going to register Abby for kindergarten at John Paulding school. While we are also in the process of applying for her to attend Solomon Schechter (a private, Jewish day school), we know that if that doesn't work out, she'll end up at our local public kindergarten. I am sad and nervous about this process for a few reasons:
1. My little "baby" girl is all grown up! Sure, she still has meltdowns and needs a reminder to wipe after going to the bathroom, but kindergarten seems like a HUGE milestone. It means a full day of school, homework assignments, a much larger class size than she is used to, riding the bus and making all new friends. Maybe she'll be ready for all of this come September, but I'm not so sure I am!
2. With the beginning of kindergarten comes the end of the innocence of preschool - the "fun" days, playtime, snacktime and friends. In preschool - you colored on someone else's paper? Don't do it again, please. In kindergarten - that will get you a trip to the corner of the classroom, or the principal's office if it happens again.
3. Parental involvement at preschool seems easy and fun - you can get involved if/when you want to, do drop-offs and pick-ups, check in with the teachers whenever you want. In kindergarten, unless there's a real issue, I'm not expecting to have much interaction with the teachers other than at conferences.
4. Preschool was somewhere Abby looked forward to and had fun at. Will kindergarten have the same feeling of excitement and anticipation?
5. And then there are my own fears for her: will she make new friends easily, be able to handle herself socially, will she be bullied or be a bully, will she learn and grow as quickly as the others?
I can't answer any of those questions today, but I can say that I am trying to get past my own fears and be excited for this new chapter in all of our lives. In about 5 months, Abby will be embarking on her first day of "real" school and I'll be cheering for her and rooting her on, even though I'm wishing I could pause time and keep her innocent and young forever.
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