The Ending of an Era, The Turning of a Page

Call me Mother of the Year.

I'm choosing the line of a Tim McGraw song because it is exactly what I did last night. I was looking through Peanut's notebook from Beloved Teacher. It's a log between her and I, giving updates on our boy's behavior and thoughts on where he's going and needs to be.

There's a lot in there.

There's the high points of his good behavior, his gentleness toward the kids who are smaller than him. There's the day he learned how to hold his crayon properly and write his name. There's a note of congratulations from the day he became a big brother. I'm reading also his lower points: the tantrums, the hitting, the day we realized that he needed more testing and the new diagnosis.

I realize as I hold this notebook that I have the history of this year. I hold all the joys and the frustrations of parenting and teaching Peanut. And I realize as I hold this that this notebook is full. There are no more pages to be written for preschool.

You see, yesterday was Peanut's last day of preschool. Today will be the end of the year picnic. I'll attend his Annual Review meeting and meet with his Kindergarten teacher on Tuesday. And that will be that, until August.

Make no mistake, he's ready for Kindergarten. Thanks to Beloved Teacher, I'm (mostly) ready to let him go. We'll have a fun summer, and I'm looking forward to that. For today, though, I'll eat a hot dog in my son's classroom and realize that I could not have given him the growth he's achieved.

Thanks, Beloved Teacher. For everything.

Call me Mother of the Year.