Off to School

I sent Austin off to school this morning, of a sort, Vacation Bible School.  Our church doesn't do a VBS but a friend told me about a local church holding one that has a class for 3 year olds.  Austin LOVES going to Children's Ministry at church so I thought this would be a lovely break in our routine for a week.

And I think it will be a wonderful experience for him, but there was a surprising amount of emotion at drop-off time this morning.  All from me; Austin had his usual "this is gonna be fun!" attitude and hardly blinked when I said good-bye.  But as I walked out of the sanctuary and turned around to glance back at him (he was sitting calmly on the pew, just looking around at all the people) I thought "Can this be real?  Is my baby boy old enough to be dropped off at 'school' of any kind and left for the morning?"  Part of me, most of me, knows he'll be totally fine but of course there's another small part that wonders how he'll do on his own for three whole hours.  (That wondering mostly revolves around whether he will go potty as needed when I'm not there to tell him to do it. :-)  Gotta love this stage.)

Although I've enjoyed some extra time to myself this morning while Esther naps and have gotten A LOT more done than usual, I felt so strongly this morning that I would not want this to be the whole future. Sending my kids off to school every morning and not seeing them all day.  Wondering what they're learning and who they're playing with.  Missing the little lightbulbs that go off when they figure something out.  Seeing the excitement when we do a new activity.  Goodness, I'm making myself tear up just thinking about all this. There are many, many reasons why we are choosing to homeschool, but simple time with our kids is certainly not the least among them.

Speaking of time with my kids, it's time to get Munchkin #2 out of bed.  One-on-one playtime with my baby girl is a rare thing and I'm going to enjoy it in the next hour before I get Austin.