What a day, what a day, what a day.
The headline:
My second-born beauty, who I love like mad, started Pre-K today—and she managed to rip me to shreds and pieces and bits for all sorts of reasons.
She ripped me to bits when I told her to be silly and she looked so perfectly like her normal, playful self:
She ripped me to bits when I looked at this shot and saw the 13-year-old version of my girl staring back at me. I mean...I can’t even.
She ripped me to bits when I realized how sweetly she was posing for all these pics (even when she wouldn’t look at the camera) because only a few short months (or weeks, really!) ago, she wouldn’t have indulged me:
She ripped me to bits when she posed in this very spot because I had a flashbacks of Chica two years ago doing the exact same pose—and then I wanted to weep at the time that has zoomed by:
She ripped me to bits when she kept indulging photo after photo—even when she had to default to the adorable I-need-a-distraction-to-survive-this-so-I’m-gonna-chew-on-my-finger tick that is so her:
She ripped me to bits when I put on her new backpack and imagined her locating the one that was hers when I wasn’t at school to help her—and I knew she’d find it because of the yellow poof-ball flair she picked out at Target yesterday:
And finally, she ripped me to bits with this classic I’m-just-indulging-you-Mama smile that is her go-to photo expression 99% of the time. :)
I mean, my love for this girlie is off the charts—but my emotions are for her, as well.
Because it feels more painful (not harder, per se) to send this one to school for the simple fact that it just confirms I will never get a true one-on-one season o’ preschool time with her.
She’s my sandwhiched baby.
Stuck in the middle of Chica—who got undivided attention when she was born and still gets quite a bit today due to her status as the eldest and the one to go first on so many things.
And Little Man, as the baby—who gets undivided attention because he demands it (ha), and will get a couple bonus years of daytime attention from Mama while his sisters are in school.
But my Chicklet, my gorgeous, inventive, playful, focused-to-the-point-of-blocking-me-out Chicklet, I worry about constantly.
Honest to goodness, I do.
Because I want her to get just as much of me as humanly possible, despite her middle-child status. And I want her to feel all the love and attention and dedication her siblings receive, even though she has such subtle ways of demanding it.
She is my social one towards others. But ironically, my quietest one at home (unless brother is stealing or destroying a toy). She is not a babbler in the car, or the one who strikes up a conversation (unless it’s a made-up, wildly-imaginative story), or the one I can hear in the playroom when I am downstairs fixing dinner. She is not the instigator of much of anything in our household, but the happiest clam of all to be surrounded by her siblings (even when it doesn’t appear that she really notices they’re with her).
Now...if this post has turned into a little how-I-love-thee ode to my girl, it’s because that’s sort of what’s been on my mind of late as we approach this Pre-K milestone.
And for all of the reasons above, it was doubly hard to process and proceed in the face of her reaction to school today.
Because I expected my girl to just go with the flow since she hasn’t seemed overly interested in talking about school. But instead, just as she has a few times this week in preparation for the big day...she sobbed.
I mean, my Chicklet looked at me with those big, gorgeous, green eyes and her lip quivered, the tears came, and she just sobbed—from about five minutes after all those happy pictures were taken at home to the moment we walked all the way down the hall to her classroom.
And they weren’t tantrum or fearful tears that would have been better, they were sad tears. And she just kept saying, “but, I’ll miss you, I’ll miss you.”
Ugh.
Now. I don’t want to place too much emphasis on this first-day reaction because:
a) I’ve learned that things can be good, bad or ugly on day one and wildly different on week two, let alone month two.
b) my girl was smiling when I picked her up and quite chatty about the events of the day. Woohoo!
But still.
Today was hard for this Mama for a lot of reasons. And this Pre-K milestone was just one of them.
Change is just hard.
The start of each school year is hard.
Juggling schedules and needs of three tiny people is hard.
But I have faith we’ll get to a smoother place of not-so-much-newness in a few short weeks.
And I have gratitude for a few simple things that helped us survive the major moments of the morning.
Like...
The fish tank at Chicklet’s school (an excellent try-to-stop-crying distraction):
The magnetic tiles that Chicklet loves sooo much these days that were at her table when we walked in her classroom, and gave me just the window I needed to sneak myself (and her screaming brother) out.
And, look—proof she survived and was still smiling when we headed home today. :)
In other news...Little Man and I went to have lunch with Chica today since it was grandparents lunch day (we just wanted to be her crew), and it was a lovely distraction from the morning.
I’m hopeful we can make it up there for more lunches this year now that Little Man is slightly more behaved, ha.
Or at least, as behaved as he’s gonna be. ;)
Okay, lots of other tidbits and updates I’d like to share, but I’m wiped, so...more later, as time allows!
Peace out, peeps!
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