I Cannot Believe It

Miss Margaret started kindergarten last week. WHAT? How did I have a baby that turned five? She picked out the outfit she wanted to wear two weeks in advance and called me back into her bedroom many nights to say, "I'm so excited for school!" One night she also admitted, "And I'm a little bit nervous." I told her that's okay and I always felt a little nervous for the first day of school too. I didn't tell her I was A LOT nervous and a little sad to let her go to kindergarten all day. I take solace in knowing if I miss her too much I can just bring her right back home.

The night before we had family home evening about being prepared. We printed out a chart of things she needs to do every morning, we let her ask questions and gave advice. We've also been talking about being good examples and being missionaries in some of our FHE lessons lately so I reminded them of our lesson when we learned the primary song, "I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ". Sitting there with my kids safely gathered around me, I realized that this transition is a big deal because it's the first day of putting my preparation as a mother to the test. Have I prepared her? Helped her be confident and secure? Given her enough knowledge about who she is and helped instill the importance of that in her? I guess we'll see.


Matt assured me I was making a bigger deal of it than necessary, and so we *calmly* accompanied her down the stairs, out the door, down the block and across the street. We huddled in the corners of her kindergarten classroom that smelled like recently painted walls and industrial strength cleaner with other nervous parents as her teacher took her to a cubby with her name on it and gave her a nametag. She left her Disney princess backpack there, found a table with paper and crayons and started coloring. She glanced up, scanned the room and found me. She confidently crossed the room to ask me if I was going to leave now. It wasn't a, "I'm ready for you to leave," nor a, "Leave so I can get on with this," she just wanted to make sure she gave me a goodbye hug. I walked into the hall and unwanted tears spilled onto my cheeks while the lump in my throat burned. Matt grasped my hand and smirked a little when he noticed the tears. I had Stella strapped onto me in the Baby Bjorn and my heart almost broke thinking of leaving her in just a few short years. I know now how fast it really goes.

You go girl! Whether it has anything to do with me or not, she sure seemed ready.