Dear Jack, Months 55 & 56

Dear Jack,

It's begun to sink in with me that you're headed to school next fall. Kindergarten. In 7 months, you'll be spending a good portion of your waking hours in a classroom. We'll be separated all day long.

I'll be losing a bit of my control in your life and that stresses me out a little. I've been trying to find a half day kindergarten program for you, telling myself that it would be a better transition for you and thinking that it's what you need. I'm beginning to realize that it's more what I need than what you need.

Perhaps I'm becoming one of those "helicopter parents" that have always caused me to roll my eyes, but it kills me that I won't know what you're doing all day. When you come home saying something new or doing something new, I won't know for sure where you picked it up. Sure, I'll get report cards and progress reports, but they won't tell me the whole story. When I pick you up from preschool and ask you how your morning was, you usually respond by saying "exhausting" and not much else. I fear that I'll get even less information as the years pass.

I wonder if we've done enough to prepare you. I hope that you'll be ready for being out on your own . . . well as much as a kindergartener is out on his own. You'll be making new friends. You'll have conflict and will learn how to handle it. At some point, you'll get your feelings hurt. There will be peer pressure . . . even at 5 years old. Have we given you the tools you'll need to face all of these things? I guess we'll find out soon enough.

All of this is good. I know that. I know that your life has to move forward and I want that for you. I certainly don't want you living here and sleeping on the top bunk when you're 30. But it doesn't make it any easier right now.

I sometimes worry that I've wasted time. I think about the times you've wanted to read a book or sit in my lap that I've had to say "no" and wonder if I should have said "yes" because those moments are fleeting. I worry that the afternoons that I let you watch tv because I needed a break should have been afternoons that I spent playing a board game with you or drawing with you. Starting next fall, this summer actually, I will never have the time that I have with you now back again. Ever.

I know your brother is going to miss you, too. He'll start preschool and will be having fun of his own, but you two are pretty attached to each other.

I don't know what school you'll be attending. Your dad and I are trying to figure that out and to be quite honest, it's the most stressful thing in my life right now. But I do know that wherever you go, I'll miss you. And I also know that the first few days will be way harder for me than they are for you.

Love,
Mom