My Preschool Blues

Tomorrow my 4 year-old will start her last semester of preschool. September will bring Kindergarden and someone else watching her for the larger portion of the day.  Yoyo (our daughter's nickname) has been going to a preschool provided by the high school as an educational opportunity for both the high schoolers as well as the preschools. It's extremely cheap ($25 a semester) and Yoyo has a great time charming all the kids and teenagers. The down side is that it's only an 8 week program and the focus of it is more small motor skills and social skills not learning letters, numbers, etc. that they need to know before they go into kindergarden.

Luckily, Yoyo loves to learn which made it easy to teach her the alphabet and numbers at home, so I've never been worried about her being educationally where she needs to be in September. What does worry me, like I've mentioned on this blog before, is that Yoyo has some severe food allergies and this preschool has been so good about keeping her safe but I haven't been able to bring myself to trust her future kindergarden/school. The preschool is 3 days a week for almost 2 hours a day and with the little time they have with her they work so hard to make sure she isn't exposed to any foods that could hurt her. Starting next September,  Yoyo will be spending 6 hours a day, 5 days a week away for me and in someone else's care. There will be only one, maybe 2 adults in the class and 2-3 times as many kids in class than what is in her preschool class. I'm excited for her to start school and reap all the benefits that school provides, but I am so nervous to leave her and her allergies in someone else's care for the majority of the day.

 How can I trust that they will do just as good of a job watching over Yoyo as her preschool class does? I keep coming back to this thought as we get closer and closer to September and I hope that with time I can ease my thoughts and find trust in the system.  But, for now, as I send her off tomorrow to her first/last day of preschool,  I will be sad that we are getting closer to her last day in this wonderful program. She has had a great teacher who has been so good at taking care of her and I wish I could express to her how wonderful she had been to the both of us, but I don't think there are words that will correctly express my gratefulness.

What I have to do is take the last couple of months I have left before school starts to prep myself for the change that is coming and learn to trust these strangers with, basically, my child's life and future.

Oh Lord! Give me strength!

From collages

Yoyo on her first-first day of preschool and also on her last-first day or preschool. She's changed so much! And after looking at these pictures I apparently like pink and brown outfits for Yoyo, ha!