It’s less than 12 hours before I drop Ethan off at a new school to spend his first day in Kindergarten. As I ironed his little red polo shirt and navy shorts (part of his uniform) tonight, I recalled my first day of school. I can remember wearing a white dress with strawberries on it and my mom fixing my hair in a French braid with pretty little white ribbons on the end. My earliest memories of childhood start around this time, which makes me think his will too.

He seems un-fazed by the upcoming day and everyone has asked me if he is excited. I can’t tell that he’s anymore excited about going to school than he is about taking a bath. He definitely has a “whatever” type of attitude much like his father.

I’ve been dreading it though. I’m confident we’ve put him in a great school and that it will be a good environment for him, but I’m just not ready to give him up. My schedule has been pretty flexible over the years since he was born. For the first two summers after his birth I was able to stay home and work only during the school year. Even then I worked from home several days a week, which allowed me to be with him a lot. As he’s gotten older I’ve still been able to stay home almost whenever I wanted. So if we woke up one morning and decided we wanted to stay home and have a pajama day, we did.

Now things are changing. He is expected at school from 8 a.m. - 3 p.m. every day they are in session. We can’t just have a “homeday” as Ethan often called them whenever we want.

So couple that with the fact he’s our only child and I’m having a very hard time letting go. Our schedule is going to be very different and it will take a while to get used to, but we will. My only hope is that the first note home from his teacher isn’t about the fact he picks his nose and eats it!