I wanna go to school Mommy!

I've been hearing this a lot lately from Astrid, "I wanna go to school Mommy!" To her "school" is this place where all her friends go during the day and she feels she is missing out. She too wants to go to this enchanted place where she can spend hours playing with her friends.

But what she doesn't realize is:

a) She won't be going to the same preschool as her friends (they go to various schools, all of which are full).

b) When she goes to school she won't she Mommy all day. She will only see me in the early mornings when I'm getting her ready and driving her to school, and in the evening when I get off work and pick her up from school (and we'll have a couple hours together before it's her bedtime).

c) When she's at school, she will be there for the entire day. She can't just decide she wants to go to the zoo, park, library, swimming, beach, restaurant etc. I've been told by other mothers that the 1st month their kids were so excited about going to school because it was all new, but as soon as the novelty wore off they begged to stay home.

d) She will have to share 2 teachers with 18 other kids, so her needs won't be met immediately all the time like they are with Mommy at home. For example: If she wants to eat her string cheese, she will have to wait for the scheduled school snack time and wait her turn. That might be the biggest adjustment for her (other than just not having me around all the time doting on her.)

It makes me a little sad, because she'll be going to school soon enough. It feels a bit rushed for me (I don't know if I'm ready!) and is a pretty big transition that I'm just starting to digest. I don't know if I mentioned it on this blog, but I accepted a job offer with an official start date in March. This way I have some time to get Astrid acclimated to preschool before I go back to work full time. (Click here to read more about my new job.) So I'm going to start bringing Astrid to her preschool on a part time basis mid February, and then she'll be going to school full time starting in March.

In the meantime I've been telling Astrid that she will be starting school soon, so she should enjoy her time with Mommy.