To the other side of the building

Time is a really weird thing. Sometimes you just forget about it. You go to bed, wake up, eat breakfast, go about your daily routine...and then you look up and things are different.

Cortlan started preschool this morning. He has been at daycare ever since I went back to work when he was eight months old (barring summers and my second maternity leave), so you would think that this would be no big deal. I thought it would be no big deal. I mean, he is literally just moving to the other side of the relatively small building...he will be there the same hours, essentially do the same thing...but with three-year olds. And it was a big deal.

He has been "transitioning" this week. He has spent a few hours here and there in the preschool room, and yesterday he even took a nap there. But today was the first day that he started the day in that room.

Cortlan cried this morning. On the way to school. He never does that. "I don't wanna go to peeskole! I wanna be a ittle boy!" This from my big boy, who feeds our dog all by himself after dinner without even being asked, who holds his sister's hand in the car when she is sad, who insists that he can "do it by me-self!" any chance that he can, but who is also a little bit afraid that there are monsters in his closet (though doesn't want to admit it, as he assures me with a shaky confidence that "some monsers are nice...right?").

This morning was hard for me, too. I just wanted to cuddle him up. You know what? If you don't want to grow up, you don't have to. I will forsake my dreams of grandchildren (of which there are no guarantees anyway) to have you as my little boy forever. I will always want to hold you like this, and build block towers on the floor, and pretend to eat the delicious play-doh food you made me for dinner.

But alas, I had to be the grown up. We confidently and enthusiastically walked into that preschool room. And because I bribed him with a Blueberry Special K Breakfast bar, we had no more crying.

Oh, Cortlan. If you only knew how much I would just love to pause time right now.

But I went about my daily routine, went to bed, woke up, ate breakfast. And then I looked up and my ittle boy was a preschooler.


(My favorite video clip, taken about a year ago.)