The end of an era

Moses graduated from preschool last Wednesday evening. Just thinking about the upcoming ceremony made me teary, and after the teacher’s speech at the beginning of the evening I thought I’d soon be snotting everywhere embarrassingly, but I managed to distract myself by initiating the applause when no one else was clapping, and faffing about with camera settings, and then by taking a stream of mostly-blurry photos of Moses accepting his award, so that it wasn’t until he’d walked out of the room again that I realised he’d just been standing in front of me wearing his gown and cap, and I’d paid zero attention to this fact because I’d been focussing on focussing. It stopped me from crying, which was helpful, but I think next time I’ll leave the photos to someone else and appreciate my little boy’s proud face in the actual moment instead.

So Mo has two more days of preschool left. FOREVER. We’ve all been talking about it a lot since last week; I think it’s finally sinking in. Mo’s started counting down the days and telling me how much he’ll miss Henry when they’re no longer together “all the time.” “Do you think maybe you’ll feel a bit excited, too, when you finish preschool?” I asked him this morning. “No,” he replied, “Just sad.” This afternoon he said he wished he was Hazel so he could start preschool next year instead of school. He said, “I just wish things didn’t have to change.” I told him I completely understood, that change made me feel anxious too, and then we sat in silence for a bit while I fought off tears. (I told this story to Alan this evening, and he cried too. We’ll all be messes on Wednesday, but we’re having pies for dinner, so that’ll help.)