I cried today. I wasn't ready for it, but when I called Den in to our room to tell him what was going on, he began to tear up also. Just over 5 years ago we brought Eddie home from the hospital and neither of us imagined how quickly we would arrive to this point. Eddie's last day of preschool was today. I had always scoffed at preschool graduations and it seemed parents placed so much emphasis on this. I now can understand where they are coming from. We have LOVED this school. The staff and teachers are just wonderful and supportive to both the parents and the kids. We certainly have 2 years ahead of us with Josie, but sending Eddie off to kinder brings tears to my eyes just writing about it.
I was a room parent this year with a mom I'd gotten to know well last year. We had a good time, but it was more work than we thought it would be when we signed up. My co-parent asked me to give the 'thank you to the teachers' speech. As a gift to the teachers, we'd had each child draw a picture, title the picture and then write their name. We then recorded something they liked or would remember about the teacher. We attached a photo of each child and a couple class photos and gave them each a scrapbook with everyone included (we also gave a gift card too). Den hadn't arrived yet, so I can't get a true critique of my comments, but I'd given some thought to how to sum things up. I thanked everyone for their support as my friend and I cut our teeth as room parents. I then thanked the teachers for providing such a fun and welcoming place for the kids. I explained that while it is often the kids that teachers know thay have impacted, that they also impact the parents. Knowing that our kids were coming to a place each day that they enjoyed and knowing that as they head off to kinder, they are as fully prepared as they can possibly be is such as wonderful feeling as a parent. About half way through, when I started talking about the parents, I choaked up and had to fight back tears. I was so not prepared for that. At least I had seen a couple other parents tearing up, so it wasn't like I was the only one overcome by the transformation of ending one chapter and beginning another.
After I spoke, I was blown away by what I heard next. Our kids love art. It's one of their favorite things to do and Cookie comes up with such creative projects for them and we have enrolled them in classes to have even more fun (especially for the messy stuff). So Eddie will make pictures for everyone in the family--included g'parents and sometimes extended family and friends. One of his teachers told the whole class that today Eddie announced to her that he wanted to make a picture for each kid in the class. She thought he needed 16 pieces of paper, but he said he wasn't going to make one for himself, only to give to each of the kids. When you looked on the wall above all the hooks, was a picture for each child that I recognized as crafted by Eddie. I asked him about it tonight and he said he didn't want any of the kids to feel sad that the teachers had all gotten artwork by each of the kids, so he wanted to draw a picture as a present for each kid so they too had a piece of art to take home. Wow!
My co-room parent really wanted some way more than a pizza party to indicate to the kids that this was not just another day of preschool and so she spearheaded an afterschool dance party with diplomas and caps for each kid. While permitted, it was not an offical preschool event, so the parents took care of everything (for all its virtues, the school is slow to change and many of the teachers had been around for a couple generations of kids). We had a photography skilled mom take photos of each kid (so I don't have the photo yet), but the parents had a good time as did the kids. The preschool director thought this was a nice direction to consider for the next year. We even had t-shirts for their kids with their names on the back (written by the kids).
Everything was going great...until almost everyone had left except about 8 little girls and Eddie. One girl whom he knows well said to him, 'no boys allowed!'. Apparently earlier in the play, the boys had said something similar to the girls. He came bawling to me. Extremely upset. I tried multiple times and multiple ways to reintegrate him and he would have none of it. Even the little girls realized how sad he was and tried to get him to join in. At the very end, he did, but he said he couldn't stop crying, blotchy face, red eyes and running nose. I was so sad for him and tried every kind of pep talk I could think of. Not how I wanted things to end for him. He did manage to cheer up, but it is these expereinces I do not look forward to. He is such a sweet kid, and while he is not an angel, does have thin skin himself. I figure I have the summer to help him adjust to kinder and grade school and that I can't create an artificial cocoon that will protect him from most of the ills of the world. Any advice on how to help him develop thicker skin or learn how to react to these types of things?
So the pictures: the first one I couldn't get them to pose until I pulled up the picture from Sept. 2009 of Eddie's first day of school, it was a cute shot and they basically recreated the picture. Then you have Eddie with his 2 main teachers (there was also an assistant). The one thanked Den for Eddie being in her class (we figure she did this with each child). This last one is at the after-party. Eddie was loaded up on sugar and having a great time.
