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And Now it’s the Last Day of Preschool.

On September 4, 2007, I wrote this extremely neurotic post detailing the events of that morning – Kate’s first day of preschool.

We were both nervous about taking this new step.

And here we are, not quite two years later, and it’s her last day of preschool. Ever.

She’s happy and excited for today’s end-of-the-year picnic (which my sister has graciously agreed to attend while I am working), and she’s anxious to move on to the next thing, to be done with “baby school,” and to start kindergarten.

I would have thought I’d be wistful and sad about today, and I suppose I’ve had my moments, but really I am just so proud of this girl, and so grateful to see her grow and learn and mature and become even more amazing than she already is.

Watch out, world. Here she comes.

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When did WE become the grown ups?

Kate’s playing t-ball this spring, on the same field where I played many years ago. As I watched her game last night, I looked around the park and saw so many of the same faces I had seen on the field way back then.

But something was different, something was off.

We weren’t the kids running the bases, fielding ground balls or picking dandelions. We were the spectators, the coaches, the league organizers, the ones carrying Dora lawn chairs and passing out Capri Suns after the game. We were the parents.

We were the grown ups.

How did that happen? And who approved it? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Frankly I felt like we were all impostors, that there were some actual, real adults behind the scenes pulling strings.

I talked it over with Jenny, and she said she and Bobby had a very similar experience during Joshua’s kindergarten screening. He’s entering the same school they both attended, and they had the same feeling I did – the juxtaposition of roles, the impossibility that they weren’t still in elementary themselves, but it was their kid’s turn.

I don’t think I know enough to be a real grown up yet. Surely there are some secrets yet to be bestowed upon me, some magical moment when it will click and when I will start feeling like an adult.

But it sure hasn’t happened yet.

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Decisions, decisions.

I’m not the greatest decision maker in the world. I’m the one in the group who is NO help in deciding where to go to lunch, I stare at my closet forever each morning trying to decide what to wear, and just yesterday I took a good five minutes deciding what I wanted at Starbucks (grande white chocolate mocha, skim).

I think it’s safe to say that I over-analyze everything. Everything.

So, clearly when it comes to my kids, I’m even worse. And when it comes to important decisions about my kids… well, I’m up nights.

Because basically? I don’t know what the heck I’m doing in the parenting arena, so I research, research, research, look for guidance and the experience of others, and try to make sure I’m making the exact right move before I do anything.

Except when I can’t.

I’m finding that now we’re starting to come across decisions that Google and blogs and messageboards don’t have the answers to. Decisions that will impact our kids daily. Decisions that only Andy and I can make, and ones that we have to make and then and only then we will see if we’ve made the right ones.

Trial and error where my kids are involved? Makes me nervous as hell.

So tell me how you do it. Please. Because if I can’t research an exact answer to my question, leave it to me to research how to come to a conclusion.

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