The First Day of Letting Go, AKA Preschool

My house is eerily quiet, save for cicadas singing outside my window and the tune of “Hush little baby …” wafting down the stairs from Damien’s naptime elephant soother.

Usually during this time, I’m building towers out of magnet tiles or vans out of Legos, watching a Disney movie or reading a book while Luca watches Transformer Rescue Bots.

But today is different. Today is my first day of letting go.

Luca's First Day of Preschool, Age 4

They say “weaning” begins the first time a parent gives a baby solid food, and today feels similar. It’s Luca’s first day of preschool.

This, his first step toward independence from me, feels like a weight off my shoulders but also like loss. Excitement and pride and sadness. It’s my first step toward Room Parenting and Soccer Momhood and an empty nest, and his first baby step toward eventual life on his own.

I’ve been excited about Luca starting school this year. He’s 4 after all, and the research seems pretty solid that a year of preschool before kindergarten helps set the foundation for a student’s school success.

But it wasn’t until our orientation yesterday that it truly hit home.

The first hour in the gym was all business with sick policies and the like, but the second hour, in Luca’s classroom with his teacher, surrounded by art supplies and costumes and blocks, I nearly lost it several times. I was crouched awkwardly in a child’s wooden chair at a foot-high table, listening as the man who would spend hours with Luca gave a survey of his education philosophy and explained how his class would run.

I imagined Luca going through the procedures he mentioned, sharing questions and tasks with a crowd full of his peers. Learning to navigate new rules and structures. I knew Luca would thrive, and I worried he’d be rough with other children. I wondered how he’d do sharing control of games and toys. I marveled at how fitting the classroom would be for my boy. I willed my eyes to stop tearing up.

The teacher described how our children would be prepared for kindergarten, and suddenly my stomach dropped: Kindergarten means first grade then second grade then basically high school.

“Ten months, once it starts, just goes,” he said. “So we want to start off with a great year right from the beginning.”

Gulp.

And this morning (after the best commute ever: Down the stairs, through a tunnel and there, in less time than it takes to get from Target to my parking spot), as Joe and I dropped him off, I felt so proud, and he was so brave.

I helped him stow his belongings in his cubby and went to introduce him to his teacher.

Luca, after shaking the man’s hand, eyed the building blocks area and immediately found the giant Magnatiles.

“Oh, these stick together!” the teacher told him, sitting down beside him. “Let me show you.”

“I already know,” Luca told him.

“Oh, you already know,” his teacher said. “Well, then you show me.”

I gathered up Damien, who was bummed he didn’t get to stay and play in the colorful room, and dragged him away from the excitement.

Outside the classroom, rain pattered on the surface of the koi pond and created a mood that felt appropriate: beautiful, reflective, nostalgic, sad.

So it’s begun.