twilight33 | Kieran's first school dropoff

Last Tuesday was a 'slow start' beginning, meaning half of the herd of 20 kids showed up for half of the usual preschool time. Friday was a full day with everyone, which completely overwhelmed Kieran to the point where we had to leave a half hour early.

His teacher called yesterday to touch base about today, which was supposed to be the first dropoff day for me. I thought it was likely I'd stay the whole time given how Friday went, and she agreed that it'd probably be best for me to do that.

After about 15 minutes playing outside with him & the other kids, I suddenly had a surge of confidence that he would be just fine & to come back a half hour earlier than the end time. I told the teacher and one of the other moms in our small group about the change in plans, told Kieran goodbye, that I love him & would be back soon and got a response of 'bye you, back soon' from him without a frown or tears... and turned to walk off the playground & didn't look back.

It was the strangest feeling to drive back home, knowing that Kieran wasn't with me nor was he out with my husband somewhere but at... school. I opened up my long-neglected storage container of scrapbooking supplies, and tackled a full hour's worth of layouts for Kieran's previous toddler preschool year. I am almost done with it, and finally feel like I've broken free from the creativity rut that hit over the summer.

When I came back to school, I walked through the door fully prepared to hear him sobbing or whining or generally being grumpy. Instead, he was having such a good time running around & exploring that he didn't even notice I was there for 15 minutes, even though he came within 3 feet of me several times. He apparently had a few moments where he'd look around for me, even racing up to another mom whose hair is the same color as mine, but there were no tears & he didn't have that slightly anxious look he gets when he has been unhappy about something earlier.

During circle time he sat in another mom's lap at first, then finally saw me and happily came running over to sit in mine. Not even a trace of 'how dare you abandon me!', just 'oh, mom's here too, cool!'. My brave little guy, I'm so proud of him & of me too for finally being able to let go just a little.