The End of Babyhood Starts at the Preschool DoorNot so long ago I picked Berkeley up from the St. Francis Parish nursery. After signing him out, I was handed a blue piece of construction paper covered in a pattern of lines drawn with colored pens.
“Berkeley was really into this today,” said Carole, the nursery coordinator.
My son's caregiver explained the little ones in the nursery worked with stencils that day and my son, in particular, spent a lot of time on his “project”. She pointed to areas on the page which alluded to possible designs, telling me these were from tracing stencils.
“He starts preschool tomorrow,” I said with a resigned sigh. “He turns 3 years old in a few days.”
Carole offered her mother-to-mother condolences and gave me a hug of reassurance. Even though our family had been talking about Berkeley starting preschool for several days at that point, the reality he was no longer a baby was not a concept I was quite ready to embrace.
My daughter started her preschool career on the earlier side. Barcelona was only 2 years old and a few months on her first day.
The decision to enroll my first born in preschool at this age was influenced by several factors. A child development specialist suggested she would benefit from peer modeling when it came to her speech and gross motor development. I was also pregnant with her little brother and decided I did not want his arrival to be associated with the start of preschool. The fact we already knew most of the other children in the class did not hurt either.
Within a month of starting preschool Barcelona's use of sign language started to give way to spoken words. As the only girl in her class at the time, she was physically challenged to keep up with all the boys though, thankfully, they refrained from wrestling her as they did each other.
By the time Berkeley was born five months later, Barcelona had graduated to a big girl bed and could say “baby brother” clearly when referring to our newest family member. She was only 2 ½ years old at the time.
Flash forward to the night before Berkeley's first day of school... Whenever one of us in the family asked him whether he was ready for preschool, he said without pause, shaking his head, “No, not yet.”
“What about tomorrow?” We inquired.
“Yes, tomorrow.” And he continued playing with his sister unconcerned with the fact we had broached the topic of his passage from toddler to preschooler.
The next morning I remembered to put Barcelona's backpack in the car, but forgot his – probably in a subconscious attempt to delay the inevitable. After we dropped his sister off at school, I told Berkeley we would have to swing back by the house to get his backpack.
“What happened? Mommy lost it?” Asked my little guy, clearly lacking confidence of his mother to keep track of his Nemo backpack.
“No, no, mommy just forgot it,” I said, referring to myself in third person the way most parents find themselves doing when conversing with their children.
Berkeley accepted this answer in silence and lifted his window shade to get a better view of the neighborhood whizzing by him at a mere 25 mph. He sat in the same car seat as his sister had before him, clearly unfazed by the fate facing him, while I thought waxed nostalgic.
On the way to preschool, I tried to remind Berkeley of his new teacher's name. But instead of practicing “Miss Dina” my munchkin repeated “Dina dude” and “teacher dude” to my chagrin. I could thank his older sister for bringing that particular vocabulary word home with her from kindergarten and worried, though briefly, what kind of impression this would make on my son's new classmates.
When the two of us pulled up to the preschool I immediately recognized one of the moms making a drop off of her own. Our daughter had taken dance classes together when our boys were much smaller. Her presence comforted me and I started to feel excited about Berkeley's new journey.
Ever the big boy, Berkeley pulled his wheeled backpack behind him as we walked up the path to the school door where he briefly hesitated before crossing the threshold. Once inside, my son surveyed the room and before I knew it had removed both his Stride Rites and quickly made his way over to the toy bulldozers. Berkeley's new teacher gave a little chuckle at the ease with which he made the transition.
I showed Berkeley his cubby where he placed his shoes and I tucked in his backpack. After Miss Dina and I reviewed the necessary paperwork, we looked over at Berkeley who had since reunited with the bulldozers.
“I think he will be OK,” I told her with a resigned tone and a slight shrug of my shoulders.
“I think so,” she agreed with a nod. I tried not to look back on my way out the door, but turned around to steal a quick kiss from my little guy before sneaking out the door.
