I knew this day was coming. I faced it with a weird mixture of apprehension and pride. Two times already, I sat through my son's preschool "graduation" ceremony. This is, after all, what happens when you have a child in an integrated preschool program where some students move on to kindergarten each year while others stay behind to greet a new group of preschoolers in the fall.
Pig Jr.'s first "graduation" was a nerve-wracking one, as far as I was concerned. Dressed in red, the color of those students who would be returning to preschool in September, my three-year-old panicked over the sea of faces staring at him. If memory serves, he spent the vast majority of that first program with his hands covering his face and tears coursing down his quivering cheeks. He barely spoke, either in school or out, and he needed an adult to sit behind him to try and keep him even remotely focused on the task at hand. Poor kidlet. He had only started preschool the month before, and probably felt as if he had been thrown to the wolves. The hardest part, perhaps, was that an immature three-year-old is incredibly different from a typically-developing five-year-old, and Pig Jr.'s inability to keep up with his classmates probably bothered him. He just was not able to verbalize any of his frustrations.
My son's second "graduation" last year showed marked improvements. He still wore his red shirt, but tried harder to participate in the various songs his class performed. Once more, an adult needed to sit behind him to make sure he could follow everything, but no tears fell from his eyes. His vocabulary had just started to really take off at that point, but he was still incredibly quiet in school. My four-year-old son still did not seem to pay much attention to the fact that a number of his classmates would be moving on to kindergarten while he was left behind in preschool. At least he was closer in age to them last year. He was narrowing the gap between where he needed to be and where he was.
This year, at the ripe old age of five, my son finally was one of the students who wore blue to show they are entering kindergarten in the fall. Pig Jr. was smiling, energetic, and followed along with everything he was supposed to say and do. Heck, he was one of the two students chosen to hold up a flag for the flag salute that followed the preschoolers' entrance to "Pomp and Circumstance." For the first time, my son did not need an adult close at hand to make sure he did not bolt from his seat.
Back when I was in high school, I used to love the song "Little Bunny Foo Foo." My heart just about swelled to bursting when my son and his class sang that song today. Pig Jr. even had all of the hand gestures down pat, although he rushed through the "bopping them on the head" part. What a far cry this was from the terrified three-year-old whose only movements were ones the adult stationed behind him helped him to accomplish!
I am so incredibly proud of my boy for how hard he worked over these past two-plus years, and for how much he has accomplished.
I am still not sure I am ready to have all three of my offspring in elementary school come September, but I know it is necessary. My baby boy is not a baby anymore. He is going to enter kindergarten. I think I'm going to have to pack some tissues for that first day of school. It was difficult when my oldest entered kindergarten, easier when my second daughter did, but I am finding it extremely emotional to even contemplate my youngest getting ready for that next step in his education.
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