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Being a first time parent is tough.  Sending your children to school for the first time is even harder. 

The worry we feel as parents is overwhelming at times.  Wanting your children to excel, hoping they have friends, feeling the need to protect them even when they are not near you.  Gosh, it is a wonder we even get through the day.  My daughters are now four and five.  Being only 16 months apart, I did not have much time to think about things before being thrown into the pre-school mix. 

Both Talia and Julia started pre-school at the ages of three and two years and nine months.  One may think that is early but due to the amount of time they actually spend in pre-school when they are that young, it seemed more like a glorified daycare.  Nonetheless, it was good for them as far as socialization and great for mom!  You never really know what to expect until you have no choice but to deal with the unexpected…  Ok, so there we were, in the first year of pre-school.  Talia, with her backpack each morning, ready to hit the car seat and be on her way.  We pulled to the front of the school and the lovely teachers opened her car door and greeted my little one with a warm and inviting smile.  I watched as they whisked her off, through the front door.  I had no choice but to drive away since the line of cars behind me were awaiting their turn.  AWFUL!  That is the only way to describe how I felt.  Was she ok?  Did she miss me?  Was she crying?  OH GOSH!  What have I done???  Is she too young???? The emotions were grand!

The time she spent in school seemed like an eternity.  A parents awful fear of the unknown.  I could not wait to pick her up each day.  Then came the backpack check.  Humph… the first amazing art project my daughter created!!!  I could not wait to see it!  Hmmm… a large piece of white paper with a painted red dot.  I know my girls are half Indian and all but a red dot on paper?  What about the pretty rainbow I wanted to frame?  Anyhow, these dots continued and got a little bigger as the year progressed.  Then, she added another dot.  A different color!  Ok, progress.  Then came more dots, some squiggly lines and even some color combinations.  Getting better…. then came my first parent/teacher conference.  As my husband and I sat in the little people chairs, waiting at little people desks for the “oh so scary pre-k teacher” we wondered what was going to be said.  Well, the teacher sat down in front of us and showed us Talia’s work.  She spoke of how lovely Talia was and how much progress she had made.  Oh, boy we thought, now she is going to show us all this progress… Well, she did.  She opened up a large folder which had Talia’s art work in it.  She showed us how when Talia started, like all children, her concept of painting was a dot.  That was a big deal.  Slowly, the transition came though… the dots appeared bigger, more colors were being added, and low and behold, she was now starting to fill up the whole paper with color… it was getting bigger, better and this was all part of her growth and development.  Breath…  Needless to say, after a little sigh of relief, I looked at my husband and we both smiled.  We knew she was a genius… all the anxiety we had, was just another parental bump in the road.   The picture shown here is a bit of Talia and Julia.  The end result of Talia’s picture was a beautifully painted princess with a not so beautiful red face.  Even she didn’t like it.  Julia’s on the other hand… well, I am not sure what it was initially, but I do know she did not leave one square inch of that piece of paper untouched with paint!  Another genius, I know!