Spring greens and a touch of the pre-school blues

April 8, 2016

The days are long but the years are short, they always tell you about parenting – and oh boy, sometimes *those* days are really, really long – but what they don’t say is that you’ll blink once, maybe twice, and all of a sudden your tiny newborn baby will be going to school.
Grrowing sunflowers

Like lots of mums I’m slightly obsessed with time, but never more so than at the moment. I’m thrilled it’s spring and that everything’s – finally – growing green out of the grey of the winter, but it also means we are just about to find out about primary school places then it’s a short skip to September when I’ll be waving my once-tiny newborn in to the school gates, with something in my eye (who am I kidding, I’ll be the one crying like, well, a baby).

Hyacinth bulb

As one of my friends pointed out, the school thing seems so significant because *you* can remember school (Can you? I can totally remember my first day).

I have SO many mixed feelings about it all. Eliza, I know, will love it (thanks Topsy and Tim and pre-school). She’s happy and excited about it, I’m happy and excited about that. We live within coughing distance of our local school so even with ridiculous London catchment areas I’m not too concerned we won’t get a place. It’ll be nice to spend some solo time with the toddler and possibly claw back a little bit of naptime to myself.

So what is it, then? School just seems like the start of such a non-stop process. A few weekends ago we went to an event in a Soho hotel that turned out to be the hotel they were building next to my pre-baby office. My desk window had overlooked the building site and I watched them dig the foundations and start the build before I left. I was surprised at how quickly it had been finished until I realised that of course it’s finished, as it’s been over four years. Seriously, four years? With this in mind I don’t want it to suddenly be the time when she’s leaving school, and looking back nostalgically at the time just before she went to school, this time, thinking ‘how quickly did that go?’

And also…yesterday we went to the local shops and sang songs while Florence babbled along in the pram. We went to the cake shop and chose a gingerbread man for lunch pudding. We walked back past the pet shop and talked about cats. We stopped and watched some men resurface a road for ages. All the completely normal, everyday things, that I realised that soon, won’t be so everyday after all.

So the whole thing’s exciting, yes, but just…not for a while yet.

There is one more day to nominate in the MAD blog awards – if you’ve not done it yet I would love a nomination for best pre-school blog…which you can do here. Thank you! x

1 Comments

  • Sarah

    April 13, 2016 at 1:16 pm

    I totally feel you! I have sent babies to primary school twice in the last couple of years, most recently September. I thought second time round would be easier – though both were very ready and excited for the “big school” transition – but through the summer I would tear up at totally normal activities because I knew I would miss doing the banal with my girlie who was such great company. Preschool days are precious indeed. I am due to send the “baby” to preschool in September (wait, what?!?) and fear they will have to prise him from my grasping hands…. Enjoy your spring and summer I am sure it will be special for both of you!

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