May is the month when I always feel like everything is ending. I remember assuming that once I was done with college, that feeling would go away, but I was wrong. Everyone else is moving on this odd school schedule too. You either head to grad school or you have children or your friends do and you can’t ever really escape the feeling that summer’s beginning is the end of a year.
This year ends our first round of preschool. Gideon went this year because he asked to go. I hadn’t planned to let him leave my sight for two and a half hours a day for two days of the week, but he asked to go and I couldn’t really come up with a good enough reason for him not to spend time making crafts and learning how to wait his turn in a room filled with people the same size as him.
[We had intended to let him go to an event once a week that he attended exactly twice and hated. There were all sorts of issues involving the color pink and gender identity insensitivity and not meeting his expectations for order and precision. Those two nights that he went, he came home and sobbed about it. What is the point of sending a three year old to something that they absolutely hate? I couldn’t come up with an answer to that one either. Clearly my parenting choices are directly tied to being stumped.]
He loved sitting on carpet squares and he loved the anticipation that swirled around which letter would be chosen for the week. He loved seeing his friend Evan and he loved carrying a backpack. He is also very excited about the idea of it being over. Such a big kid thing, I think.
A week from today the older kids will graduate from preschool. As much as that statement makes me roll my eyes, it also makes my heart break a little bit because pre means that the real thing is coming and it can’t be possible that he is going to be doing real school. And it seems especially crazy to think that I too will be doing real school as we transform the basement and order curriculum and jump into the very real, very big world of homeschool.
We’ll start off slowly this summer with phonics and math concepts and just see how quickly we want to move. I want to aim these arrows from the Lord at targets that matter and do all that is within our power to release them toward lives of productivity and spiritual maturity. We’re beginning with the end in mind. May 2026.
