This past Thursday I went to Muffins for Moms at Charlotte’s preschool. Every year they hold a small brunch to honor all the mammas. The kids make the most adorable crafts and projects to share and they even serve us a meal. It’s one of the sweetest and most treasured events of the year.
And Thursday was my last one.
I’ve attended this event since 2006 with one or more of my babies. I’ve watched their little crafts go from colorful scribbles on a page to showcasing their cute chicken scratch handwriting. I’ve watched them sing the ABC’s and count their numbers and move on to leading a whole classroom in a lunchtime prayer.
These events are designed to make all the mammas misty-eyed. And they’ve never failed to reach that goal. You can sit around and watch a room full of strong women break down when their child stand up and says “I love you a big as the stars in the sky” and presents them with a self-portrait attached to a crepe paper flower pot.
We’ll keep these momentos forever of course. They’ll sit on our desks or live on the refrigerator – held up by the strength of homemade magnets. We might pull them out over the year and be caught in the moments of remembering our babies when they were oh so small.
It’s so bittersweet. Heartbreaking to see them develop into independent little people with ideas and dreams. Exciting to watch those ideas and dreams become something real.
In two months preschool will be over forever. By Fall each of my babies will be in school full-time. I’ll still get to attend classroom parties and I’ll always showcase their school artwork. But the things they create at this age are magical for a different reason. I can’t explain it…just different.
I don’t want to let this phase go. I don’t know that I’m ready to live entirely in the phase of life where I say I’m a mother to kids. Not babies. Not toddlers. I know I must let it go, but just want to savor it a little longer…because this might be the only time they willingly tell the world they love me as big as the stars in the sky.
Charlotte at Muffins for Moms 2013
Neena
There is nothing as precious as pre-school memories. But each and everyday you will have a new memory and something just as sweet, just different. And some day far from now, when you least expect it, you WILL hear the words that they love as big as the stars in the sky. And it will mean even that much more.
Oh these milestones. They are so exciting and so heart wrenching at the same time. I’m ambivalently preparing myself for the end of elementary school in June for my oldest. It doesn’t seem possible, and it makes me want to hold on to my toddler even longer. Lovely, lovely post!