My preschooler came home with a memory book. At school pick up, he ran to me excitedly with his hands full and something to show me. My husband and I flipped through as he pointed out each of his preschool friends and told us about his field trip and many things he learned.
We knew we would be sad, watching our oldest boy start kindergarten. We’re in the thick of it, the chaos and all the beauty of having a full house. We’re busy enough to be distracted by the day-to-day of chasing multiple littles, but never quite busy enough to forget how time skipped by so quickly. We’re preschool parents—we know all the dinosaurs, we can recite children’s literature, and we know a nap at 5 p.m. is going to absolutely wreck our schedule. We know all the local baristas maybe even a little too well.
But, as my curious 5-year-old got in the car after his last day of preschool and asked if he could come back to visit his classroom pet fish when he goes to kindergarten, it brought me straight back to the hospital when he was born. His foot was just the same length as my index finger. His intoxicating baby scent. His little squeaks. He was teeny tiny in comparison to his newborn size sleepers. I studied him in the quiet of the night when it was just the two of us awake in the world. I remembered all his baby-like features, and I have wondered all along who he would grow up to be.
I see a glimpse now.
He tells me about his friends at school every day, and I watch, over time, as each becomes more important to him. He is kind. He is caring. He includes.
He tells me about his dreams, and he asks a million great questions you wouldn’t have even thought of. He wants to be a scientist. Maybe he will change his mind six hundred more times before college, but he is smart. He is curious. He is inventive.
He tells me about all the things he does throughout the day. I won’t always be the person he tells this information to, but today I am. He says he worked hard on a painting just for me, and I thanked him for thinking of me. He is generous. He is respectful. He is thoughtful.
I am brought back to reality by my husband’s loud “Aww,” as he flips to the last page of the memory book. It’s our sweet boy in his cap and gown, and for the first time, both of us cried.
Not just teary eyes. We cried in the preschool parking lot.
My preschooler was a Covid baby. His whole world was our four walls and the neighbor’s dog out the window. He didn’t get to experience the world right away—he couldn’t even experience the grocery store. He struggles socially, and he bounces off the walls, but his sense of wonder is strong. His desire to learn about the world grows more every day. I wonder to myself often, would he have been the same if he had a “normal” childhood?
The very next evening, my whole heart walks across the gym wearing his cap and gown. He high-fives his teacher and runs for it toward us, carrying his preschool diploma. He is surrounded by his friends—confident performers, shy wavers, and sweet huggers.
I have all the answers I need right now. These incoming kindergarteners aren’t letting the world change them; they are going to be the ones changing the world.
by Dana Kimmell 
by Vicki Bahr 
by Kayla Runkel 
