K4 Graduation Day

Jim and I were both commenting on how we don't remember there being so many graduation ceremonies when we were growing up. I didn't have a graduation for Kindergarten. There was one for high school and that was it! My parents gave me a goal to reach for and graduating with my diploma (and lots of scholarships to back it up) was the goal.

Now, did I totally milk it after that? Of course! I had a graduation party for my AA degree, my Bachelor's and then of course for my Master's. Guess I had to make up for feeling jilted somehow.

But that's just it, I never felt jilted, like I should have had a ceremony to recognize passing a grade, instead of all of them.

So how do I feel about there being a little ceremony for my sweet, crazy beautiful, wildly intelligent, precious little girl who graduated from the K4 class?

Absolutely! Why wouldn't there be? Most of it is for the parents anyway, right?

Well, thankfully there was because it was the tearful reminder that this summer is it for me spending loads of time with her. Soon I will be waking myself up early to go tiptoe-ing into her room to wake her up and encourage her to get dressed, eat, brush her teeth, brush her hair, go to the bathroom and remind her to not forget her lunch and backpack, 5 days a week! Yikes!

She actually surprised me this summer. My mom said it would happen, but Katherine being my first child and all, I needed to witness it myself. Mom said the summer before she starts her Kindergarten year, she will mature so much that she'll want to spend time with other kids and she'll show me that she's ready for school. Last year she was not. I know that for a fact. She was still very clingy and unsure. But this year, this summer, she's been wanting to spend another week at vacation bible school, even if she's not sure there will be friends there she knows. She didn't even want to drive by the church last year to check it out.

There's always the side of myself that will find something wrong in my actions to explain why the change in her behavior, like, we had another baby and I don't get to spend as much time with her as I did so why wouldn't she want to go elsewhere? At least she's getting attention, from someone.

Damn mommy-guilt!

She was the one that was begging me each day to teach her after I bought the home-schooling curriculum for her Pre-Kindergarten year. She would sit still, stay interested, would do her workbook pages and I had glorious visions of home-schooling her. She had no desire to leave our comfy home and loved the attention I was able to give her. But, first trimester bouts of extreme sleepiness had me longing for the nap time we were using for teaching, and the second trimester awakened the planning beast within and the third trimester was back to napping and preparing for a third one. I also took on the responsibility of co-managing a group of 70 women (BIG learning experience there) and accepted a part-time job at our church.

Extra time to teach? Where was it? It was slipping through my fingertips along with my one-on-one time with my soon-to-be Kindergartener.

I can logically think about the change in her behavior and pinpoint it to her maturing, but I'll always wonder if I messed up somewhere. There's a really good chance, someday, I'll look back and know that the sequence of events in our family's lives were divinely planned and part of all of us growing together, but my heart longs for her still wanting to cling to my side and learn from me. Protected. Unhurt. Naive. Tender.

No surprise here, Kindergarten is going to be hard for me. Really hard. K3 was hard on me but she'll be fine. She'll flourish. She'll take calculated baby steps away from here, with a glance back now and then. She's my careful one. The one I'm having to learn first from.

Congratulations my sweet little Graduate!