Firsts

Ella and Aidan's first day of preschool is looming in the near future. I get teary when I contemplate first days, when I imagine kids donning backpacks and heading through the doors of the places that will keep and (hopefully) nurture them for years to come. 

We have parent orientation tonight and have a “meet the teachers” open house on Thursday morning. Next Tuesday, on September 8, 2009, Ella and Aidan turn 28 months old, and will pass through the doors of their school building on their very first day of preschool. It will be a day full of firsts. 

For Ella and Aidan it means the first day of the two’s class, their first backpacks, their first packed lunches, their first day apart from Mommy and/or Daddy.

For Mike and I, it will be our first definitive act of letting go as parents.

When we leave them at preschool for the first time next week, I fully anticipate my knees to shake as I walk out. I anticipate sitting in the mini-van in the parking lot, feeling that heavy, dreadful sense of having lost something, and not being able to remember where I left it.