4 years ago I was pregnant. I was expecting a bouncing baby boy, and the weeks were flying by as I busied myself with everything I had to buy for the arrival of my teeny tiny newborn. Time was a blur, but I told myself that once he was here, I would have chance to catch my breath and the whirlwind in which I was circling around in would relent and time would stand still.
Of course Leo arrived and time did everything but slow down. Week by week he grew, he started to smile, laugh and become his own little person. He captured my heart and became my very reason for living. I dedicated all that I am to my mischievous and beautiful boy, and as the weeks turned into months, and the months turned into years, the time never did relent.
Leo started nursery and slowly but surely settled in, we encountered hurdles along the way but together we over came everything that tried to stop us in our tracks. We spent days together enjoying all that we were, he had become my right arm and my very best friend. The months continued to fly by and before I knew it I had a 3 year old on my hands. An actual 3 year old who was now more a pre-schooler than a toddler, and those baby days and night feeds were now just a distant memory.
Suddenly the time had come to start thinking about SCHOOLS! Yes schools! Somehow that little boy I had cradled in my arms, lay on my chest and burped on my lap was at the age I needed to relinquish him to outside teaching and experiences that I couldn't always be a part of.
I knew exactly where I wanted Leo to go, and as the nursery he attends is based in the school grounds, I was determined that he would be attending. It's a beautiful village school and having been there myself back in the day, and having some of the very same teachers still teaching there that taught me, I knew many years ago where I wanted him to take those very first steps into education.
Of course when these applications went in, September 2015 still seemed to be so far away, a sun blazing on the very tip of the horizon, and not an imminent sunrise about to fire into the sky. But here we are in April, 4 and a bit months away to when my newly 4 year old will be starting his very first day in Reception at First School.
Last night at midnight I sat there refreshing the applications page, impatiently waiting to see if Leo had been offered a place at our school of choice. Midnight arrived and suddenly there was confirmation that Leo had indeed been granted a place at school for this coming September. It was all really happening.
I have such mixed feelings about Leo starting school, part of my thinks that it is going to do him the world of good, and the other half thinks that he is still so young and that he really will be one of the youngest in his year. Being a June baby he is at the younger end of the year, and even now there is a big difference between his over all appearance to some of the older children that are nearing the age of 5. Then I shake myself and realise that he is going to be absolutely fine, he's resilient and strong. Nothing is going to stop him or hold him back. I won't let it.
My biggest fear is handing over my baby boy on that very first day. Watching him walk into the classroom in his school uniform and leaving him in a class of 30 children, because once that has happened everything is going to change forever. What if someone is mean to him? What if he falls and needs me? What if he doesn't like it? What if he is bullied? What if he falls behind? There are so many 'what if's' buzzing around my head...
Once Leo has started school, he is going to grow up so quickly. He will learn new words, new meanings, life lessons. He will have outside influences that were never there before, he will grow up ten fold in a few short weeks. He will learn amazing things and some not so amazing things, and the next four years are going to be completely different to our first. It will never be the same... ever again. No longer will we have our exclusive Mummy and Leo time, days spent in the park and strolling around the town just the two of us, sipping Costa's by the river.
He will be at school.
These last 4 years have just completely flown. They have been the most amazing, exhilarating and emotional years of my life. Leo has learnt and grown so much, and I really do have to accept that my baby boy has grown up into a beautiful and kind little boy, and he is going to achieve so many amazing things over the coming years. It has been a learning curve for both Leo and I, because just as much as he has been learning about the ways of the world, I have had to learn about him, and being a Mum! I have made mistakes and I am by no means perfect, but when I look at Leo and his smiling Blue eyes, I know I got something right. I got him right.
In September I will be placing my trust in the hands of his teacher, I will be watching him take a step back from me and a step towards her. I myself will be taking a reluctant step back as he grows up a little bit more right in front of my eyes, and accepting that time will never slow down. It will only hurtle on, and our worlds are going to change forever.
