Holden - Senior Preschool

Dear Holden,

You are now officially in the Senior Preschool room! This is the final stop in your daycare journey before you begin Junior Kindergarten next year in the Fall of 2016. It is hard for me to imagine that at this point – the idea of watching you walk through those doors, with your backpack and packed lunch, is a bit panic-inducing. I KNOW you will be fine, as the evidence of your sisters (not to mention countless of other wee ones) before you suggests. But it’s still hard to picture, especially knowing that thanks to your Christmas-Eve arrival you will literally be the very youngest in your class at not even four years old.

But truthfully, you astound me every day with how quickly you are growing and learning and changing before our very eyes. Just this week you lost the ‘mokorcycle’ mispronunciation and say ‘motorcycle’ properly. You produce these elaborate sentences and have such a vivid imagination – ‘reading’ stories and making up ghosts and creatures and the ever-present “Mommy, Lexi hurted me. Lexi hitted my arm!” stories. You have gotten your first haircut (although it wasn’t much of a haircut; I just couldn’t stand to cut off all of your beautiful baby curls), and we are working (slowly!) on potty training. We don’t want to rush you, but we are trying to push the concept as much as possible without traumatizing you (see the afore-mentioned ‘youngest kid in kindergarten’ thing). We have no more baby gates in the house, we’ve just moved your carseat forward facing, and you like walking up and down the stairs on your own. You are still in a crib, but that will come to an end within the next few months (definitely before your third birthday). You love counting and picking out shapes and singing songs and watching movies that are too mature for you.

You still absolutely LOVE trucks and cars and motorcycles and airplanes and trains and helicopters and garbage trucks (i.e. anything that moves), and you adore Lego more than just about any other toy. You worship your sisters, especially Mercedes (likely just because she is significantly older and more mature – Lexi is more like your trouble-making-partner-in-crime).

It is a privilege and an honour to watch you grow older – it’s bittersweet, knowing you are the very last to pass through all of these phases, but we are starting to feel the freedom and flexibility again – we can go places as a family much more easily, you are much more cooperative, and you love being at Bubie and Zaidie’s house for visits or sleepovers. It is hard to believe that you began at Learning Jungle in the infant room (as the only infant!) and that this only occurred a year and a half ago. There has been such a drastic change in you over this time period, but the fundamentals of your personality have remained – you are still sweet and smiley and charming and loveable and snuggly and funny (we call you Class Clown, given how frequently you like trying to make the rest of us laugh). Please don’t change too much, because those qualities are ones I plan to savour forever.

Love,

Mama