My Brave Preschoolers

Dropping my two, brave preschoolers off on their first day of preschool gave me a small insight into how it may feel in 13 or 14 years from now when I drop off my missionary sons at the MTC. Okay, clearly I'm being a little overly dramatic, but just the idea of the similarity between the two scenarios still makes my heart hurt just a little bit: preparing my two boys for their big day with a stylish outfit, a sharp hairdo, and lots of encouragement, saying a family prayer (and keeping a constant prayer in my heart) that they will be safe and feel secure, and then giving them a giant hug and walking away, hoping, hoping, that they will be okay and knowing that even though it's a little bit hard to say goodbye, it's necessary. So, maybe a lot a bit dramatic. If their first day of preschool is causing me this much heartache, I'm going to be a sloppy mess when that special day comes to send my boys off for two years to serve the Lord.

But, back to the first day....luckily, Max made the drop off experience easy on me. With a year of preschool already under his belt (Max just barely misses the Kindergarten cut-off, so he gets to go to one more year of preschool....poor guy! He's already the size of an average first grader!), Max wasn't nervous one bit. After I walked him to his class at school, he just turned, smiled, waved, and blew me a kiss. Love that sweetheart! After school, Max told me that preschool was great! He loves that he gets to have snacks and recess every day.

Ben, on the other hand, took it a bit harder when it was time to go to school. As we drove to his school (Ben goes to a special preschool a few miles away), Ben was very nervous and asked where everyone was...Dad? Hank? Max? Joey? When we turned at the stoplight near his school, he lost it and started to cry and repeat, "no...no...no." I've been stressed about Ben's transition back to school so his sweet little protest was literally breaking my heart. When we pulled up to the curb in front of the school, we were met by his teacher, who greeted Ben with excitement. I picked Ben up to give him a hug, and he just laid his head on my shoulder--he was trying so hard to be brave, and didn't fight me at all, but was super nervous and scared. I gave him a big hug and kiss and told him he could do it and that I'd see him as soon as school was over. He walked with his teacher to his class....and I just cried like a baby. That little boy is my heart and it just pains me to see him be sad or scared. With Ben, changes take some getting used to, but I know he is going to grow so much at school and I can't wait to see all of the new things he learns.