JK Eve

Dear Cole,

It is the night before your first full day of JK. You are only three years old. You are still my little baby. But today I took you to Supercuts for a haircut and you squirmed and wriggled but you put up with the buzzer and the shears in exchange for a lemon lollipop. I don't think you will always be so easily persuaded.

Nana has been visiting for the last two weeks. She took care of you last week. You were so glad to "not have to share her" for a few days when we went to work and you stayed home with her. She and Daddy took you to meet the teacher on Thursday for a half hour. You weren't too interested in your teachers, but you did play with the dinosaurs.

On Friday, Nana dropped you off at school from 1:30 until 3:00 p.m. There was quite a bit of resistance at drop-off. You clung to Nana for dear life but she pryed you off of her, put on a brave face, went home and cleaned the house to deal with her worry. When she returned to pick you up, you ran for her with such zeal that you knocked her clean off her feet. The drama was too much and you cried all the way home.

Now it's Sunday night. For the first time, I have packed you a lunch. It has all your favourite things in it. (Except, of course, we substituted Wow Butter for Peanut butter in the sandwich and we hope you will find this acceptable.) There are stickers on some of the lunch box items so you know what to eat at the first nutrition break and what to save for the second nutrition break. We've practised this for a few weeks now. We've put a couple of pictures of our family in a zip loc bag in your backpack in case you  miss us during the day. You don't seem to like juice boxes, so I packed you water. The milk program doesn't start up right away. We bought two types of apple juice drinking boxes and you tasted the second one today as we looked on expectantly and you declared, "Milk is better."

And two days ago, you finally started to sleep past 6:30 a.m. And now we need to wake you up earlier. This summer, you were still napping almost half of the days, but now you will be forced to drop that nap. I think I'm anxious for many reasons, among them for the over-tired monster that we'll be dealing with every evening.

I think I'm excited at all the independence you've gained over the summer. You clear your own dishes from the dinner table. You use the washroom independently, use toilet paper properly and wash your hands (not always properly). You dress yourself. You can read letters and numbers and a few sight words. You know about lining up and about cubbies. When you were a really teensy baby, I longed for this day. This day when life would be waaaaaaaaaaaay easier.
And it is.
On the night before your first full day of JK, it is far easier to care for you, my darling boy. I asked if you wanted me to crawl into bed with you tonight at bed time and you said, "No thanks." And for just one night, as I'm worried and excited for tomorrow, I wish could hold onto my wee baby just a little bit longer.

Love,
Your Mommy

Birth

1 year

 

 2 years

 3 years

 

A few weeks ago