First days and fast years - Suburban Shalom

This week began the Toddler’s first couple of days in the three-year old class at her preschool. She’s been in the infant and toddler classrooms there, but this year she moves up to the official preschool program where her days will be a bit more structured and she will no longer be required to nap {help us all}. I suppose this means she is now the “Preschooler” rather than the “Toddler.”

She’s quite ready for the new class. I only hope they’re ready for her.

Now that the older two girls are in real school, I notice subtle differences each year in the way they are maturing and changing. Growth is good, but change is hard. And, it makes me appreciate these preschool years all the more as I know they are fleeting.

This is one of several outfits the Preschooler likes to wear on mornings when we stay around the house.

She doesn’t yet know that the tights go on before and underneath the leotard. It drives me crazy not to help her fix this situation, but it also illustrates a certain confidence and innocence that I hate to shatter with correction just yet.

As a mom of three daughters, I can feel panicked just thinking about the challenges that lie ahead of us. I want so much to protect the minds and hearts of these girls. The world is not kind. There are mean girls, mixed messages, social media bombardment and all manner of societal pressures to dress and look and act a certain way. No matter how hard I work to prevent it from happening, people and circumstances will inevitably offer them plenty of critique, hurt their feelings and/or let them down.

When I see the Preschooler confidently put together yet another ridiculous outfit… or when the 1st Grader asks me a very serious question about the Tooth Fairy… or when I hear the 3rd Grader making another video of herself singing to a Taylor Swift song and using her stuffed animals as backup singers… I just want to bottle up all the innocence, imagination, self assurance and uninhibited creativity and save some of that goodness to douse on them down the road when peer pressure and age begin depleting it. Of course I’m not the first or the last mom to have those feelings. I just think about it more each year when another school season begins and I see all the photographic evidence of change!

Don’t get me wrong. There are many moments when I think perhaps the next season will be easier, and I welcome it with open arms and tired eyes. Like yesterday when I had a momentary lapse in judgement and thought it might be fun to take the Preschooler out to a real lunch, just the two of us. This was my view during most of the meal as she slid under the table and did various other inappropriate things {like headstands}.

But, then I stepped into the playroom last night to put something away and noticed this scene on the couch.

Apparently all the dolls and stuffed animals had been summoned for an important meeting of some sort. I’m not sure what the case, but it makes me want to freeze time.

And, so I’m simultaneously nostalgic and hopeful. I’m sad that time is flying by and chubby babies

have already morphed into semi-independent elementary schoolers. I miss this.

But, I won’t so much miss fits like this.

So, I’m looking forward to the seasons ahead and the promise those days hold to be fun and fulfilling in their own right.

Last week the 3rd Grader checked out a kid’s cookbook from the school library and eagerly announced while she was flipping through the recipes, “Hey, maybe some day I can be our family chef and cook all our meals!”

Yes. Yes. Yes! How can I nurture this great idea??

At the very least, I think with each passing year our mealtimes are bound to get better. Perhaps they won’t be as exciting when everyone sits in their seat for the duration of the meal and no one throws a crayon across the table or pinches the person sitting next to them “because she looked at me with a strange face”… but they will be better.

And, they will be fantastic if we have a “family chef” preparing them.

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