It is rare that I get to take a day off from work to spend doing activities at my Panda’s school. So when she came home begging me to chaperone a kindergarten field trip, I decided it was time I took a day and spend with her.
Our day started when her teacher handed me the list of students that I would be in charge of for the day. Two girls and three boys were under my watch. And I wasn’t going to let them misbehave!
We all boarded the school bus. It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden on a bus and I don’t like it anymore now than I did as a schoolgirl. Relief set in when we arrived at our first stop, the town library. After a story, a weird song about the Dewey Decimal System and some pretty heavy plugs to participate in the summer ready program, we moved on to the Fire Station.
The entire class loved the firemen. But after spending an hour there they were ready to move on to lunch and playtime at the town park.
The grocery store was next and presented a challenge that I’ll address in a future blog. Let’s just preview it for now that Kroger grocery store managers may want to be a bit better informed on the health differences (or lack thereof) between brown and white eggs!
The last stop was at the local ice cream stand for a frozen dairy treat, a favorite of all the class!
The evening was spent honoring my little Monkey. She has successfully completed her first year of preschool and celebrated her closing program. I wept through a good portion of the evening, crying for kids who didn’t even belong to me!
My Monkey attends preschool at a local church. While it’s not our home church, the teachers in this facility are second to none. It is such a relief, as a full time working mom, to be able to leave your kids with people who love them just as much as I do. The daycare/preschool facility has become a part of our family and my kids have grown so much from being there. She posed with her teacher for a quick picture!
The program featured great songs, the graduation of the 5 year olds, and awards. My Monkey won two awards, one for saying all of her Bible verses and one for reading the most books in her reading program.
After the program was over, and my tears were dried, she spent the night running around hugging friends and just being a silly 3-year old. She spent time with her other “partners-in-crime”, the girls in the picture below.
The recurrent thought I kept having was that I wanted to stop the hands of time from aging my kids. They are sweet. At 6 and 3 years old, they are innocent and still want to be with their parents. They snuggle, climb on our laps and love us unconditionally. But I know those times are fading. And if I think too much about it, I’ll be digging out the tissues to dry my weeping eyes.
The days may be long when raising kids, but the years are so short and fly by. Hold on to them tight. I have my kids in a grip and don’t intend to let them grow up too fast.
I can totally relate!!! It’s so hard to watch them grow up but also rewarding when you see them grow and change in so many different ways!
It is such a bittersweet thing to watch them grow up.
Amen. So precious, so fast.