Preparing for Kindergarten: Mom's Edition

There are any number of articles on the internet you can read, and many books you can buy that educate parents on preparing children for kindergarten. From knowing every upper and lower case letter, to cutting with scissors and tying shoes...a myriad of information is out there to help prepare a child for that important milestone.

This is NOT that type of article. Moms...this article is for YOU.

I have crossed the threshold of five kindergarten classrooms on the first day of school as a parent. Waved goodbye through tears at the fresh faces with new backpacks and name tags on their shirts, all the while hoping they have a wonderful day filled with discovery and the joy of making new friends.

Last year I sent my youngest child off to kindergarten. It felt so bittersweet because this was my BABY. She was five years younger than the sibling born before her, and we had had five treasured years of bonding while the other kids were at school.

Emily was my tagalong to the store and the library. She helped me do various chores around the house in the effort to be "just like mommy" and so I knew I was going to miss her when she started going to school every day. I knew I was going to miss hearing the Playhouse Disney song on the tv and feel sad watching moms walking to the park with their little ones.

But I survived it, and moms....you can TOO.

Kindergarten is an incredible experience for your child. So rest assured, each time you look at the clock on that first day, anxiously awaiting the time your child is released, that enriching things are happening for your child.

It's a magical transition between the "little kid" world of preschool to the "big kid "world of first grade and beyond. They are still the protected ones at school, and everything they do that year will be adorable and innocent.

Boys and girls still enjoy playing with each other and everyone gets invited to everyone's birthday parties. Hugs and tears still flow freely, and disputes are solved and forgotten quickly. An age where little boys still like to pretend they are Spiderman and little girls still like to wear Princess dresses and play house.

As a kindergarten parent, you wont see the shrugged shoulders and hear the "I don't knows" of the older years. Your child will tell you EVERYTHING about their days in kindergarten. From who threw up in class to who had a time out. How many stars they got on their chart to who went home early to go to the dentist. You will also hear about every new friend they made to who hurt their feelings. Don't take these little tidbits of information for granted. Children, as they get older, will not share all these details with you and you will have to pry the information out of them.

You will get to share every joy and triumph. Just like the day when Emily came home and proudly showed me the popped blisters on her hands that signified she had learned to traverse the entire length of the monkey bars all by herself.

The smiles they flash when they learn to decode a word are simply priceless and nothing warms the heart more than seeing a child read a book on their own for the first time to a willing listener.

Rest assured mothers, that thankfully, in most cases, the kindergarten teachers REALLY do know what they are doing. It can be hard to figure out in the early days of kindergarten. Especially when the work that comes home consists mostly of tracing lines and coloring balloons and farm animals. They just want to figure out where your child is at and work from there. The patience level of these teachers always astounds me as well. Imagine reading a story about a frog to a squirmy group of five and six year olds only to be interrupted ten different times with ten different frog experiences, each one longer and more grandiose than the one before it.

So moms of new kindergarteners take heart, this will be a poignant year for you. It will be a year you cannot get back, even though sometimes you will want to. Enjoy "100 Day", the wedding of Q and U, Cat in the Hat Day, and watching little ones in construction paper Pilgrim Hats. Treasure every little hand print cast in plaster and each construction paper Valentine heart.

It goes way too fast.