Kindergarten

I'm going to be a mess on Pre-K graduation day and the first day my son goes to Kindergarten. Why? My son isn't attending Kindergarten for another ten months and yet at one of my parents meetings that I attended today for rising Kindergarteners, I started tearing up like crazy. I had to stop the ugly cry with ever fiber I had. I had to think of spiderman, yucky boogers and coming up with formulas for excel spreadsheets. It was about to get ugly and I wasn't about to let a bunch of school psychologists, PAC teachers, counselors, etc., have some of their first impressions of me as a emotional mother. I just can't believe how fast time has flown and how in a few short months, my little guy will be going to big kid school and what a journey it has been to get to this point.

I'm proud of my boy. He's loving, outgoing, sweet, compassionate and so energetic . My son has also achieved great lengths as he has a bit of a development delay. His speech impaired a lot of things and we've struggled through parts of it. We've had the downs with lack of compassion from people that dislike us because of it (I still don't understand that), had to put off teaching Russian to him and every new lesson tends to be a bit harder to teach him because of communication. However, our struggles have had their positives in that we got services to help him, bonded together as a family and learned more from this experience in appreciating the small things much more then we would have had it been smooth the entire way through. He has come so far in learning how to talk and will be shortly coming to a new cross roads where he'll be entering a new arena in life. I worry for him. Not only because of the huge change going from a preschool setting to elementary setting, but also because of his communication delay.

I have done everything I could think of to help give him the tools to succeed in preschool. I think of all sorts of games to help him learn the lessons he needs to know such as numbers, the alphabet, writing, etc., His preschool teacher and his developmental teacher praise me quite often for the creative ways I teach my son the things he needs to learn for school and how often I ask questions and communicate with them on a regular basis. I make a point to talk to both the teachers in his class each day to see how he is doing, where I can help him on and what his accomplishments are. I obviously want to work on the things he is struggling with but also congratulate him on the things he has done well. Nothing pleases my little Zaichik more than to hear his Mom tell him, "good job buddy".

I also pray. I know you must use the tools in life that God provides you, but I have a lot of conversations with God. I have conversations where I thank him for giving me such a healthy, beautiful boy and thankful for the fact he's learned how to sound out a new syllable to the alphabet or finally achieved writing a legible "N". I also pray for guidance and for my son to achieve his set goals before he enters the doors of Kindergarten next Fall. Being a Mom and being how I am, I worry constantly. I want so much for him.

This blog has been a bit all over the place, but in true form as my emotions with my son are high. He and his sister are my world. Everything I do (minus pooing), I do for my family. I want so much for all of them. I want them to achieve their goals, be happy, love and be well rounded. I also want time to slow down a bit because this little person has grown from an infant, to a toddler and now kid all too quickly. I'll miss scooping him up early on the days I can get out of work because it just won't be as easy to swing by and get him. I know I'll cry when my son goes to school. I know he'll do great. I have faith in him, his school and God's guidance. I'll just need to remember to hold of mascara that day.