An end and a new beginning.
I admit to it; the last week I have been dreading the end to Jack’s Day Care days and the beginning of his Primary School days. They call it Prep. I’ve never heard anyone call Prep anything else but ‘prep’, but it appears to be short for ‘prepartory’. The concept, hatched by our formidable education leaders, is that this is a year devoted to preparing young fertile minds for school life. It gets children out of the kindergarten phase and into a education mode…that’s the theory. So far, all I understand of prep is that Jack will be doing much the same sort of thing but in a school uniform.
So why am I dreading? Good question.
I’m so not ready.
I think it’s the uniform. I think it’s the psychological impact of driving him to school, no small jaunt, twice a day….for the rest of his school life. I think it’s me leaving one idea (Mum of boy) and moving to the next (Mum of school boy). I’m finding it hard to be brave. I want my darling baby boy to be with me. Jack, meanwhile, is crazy ready to cut a swathe through the education system.
Today was his last day of Day Care. I cooked forty cupcakes for all his mates. Oh, for the mates that are left of course. Most of his former play mates there have already moved on to prep at one the various primary schools about town today, but Jack’s school has staggered start days and Jack will be attending prep from tomorrow. And that’s another thing, all the friends he has known all these three years have all gone their separate ways now. Even though this is a small town, we are just as likely not to run into any of them ever again. Weird. All those lovely children I will no longer see.
He will thrive at school. I’m pretty confident about that. But it will change him. That’s what I dread. But that’s what he needs. Change. Growth.
Meanwhile I make cupcakes and quietly wish I could relive the last five years with him. It’s been very real.
