A MORNING IN NORFOLK!

You guys, we had Kindergarten Open House yesterday for Sloane's upcoming year and it was a doozy.

I've been in high anxiety about the upcoming transition for the past few weeks, so much so that I thought I had exhausted it all out of me, but nope, turns out it's still there.  

I felt totally overwhelmed and sweaty when we first walked in, and a little like I was going to throw up. It felt like MY first day of school. All of my instincts were shouting, 'Wait, what IS this place?? Who are all these people??' Ken and I kept giving each other big eyeballs, in between flashing big and fearful smiles at teachers.

I would casually throw over questions to Ken like, 

"Do your insides feel like they are going to fall out too?" While we strolled through the hallways and tried to imagine everything through Sloane's eyes. 

 I KNOW she's going to be fine. Because according to her, it's going to be great. She's so excited, and she was so relaxed and comfortable during the open house and excited about meeting her new teacher, exploring her new classroom, meeting the nurse and librarian, learning where the cafeteria and bus drop off is. She was skipping around with joy and couldn't keep a smile off her face.  Her new teacher seems so kind and enthusiastic, just the sort of thing Sloane needs, and I know she is going to learn so much.

It's hard to explain, and believe me when I say I didn't think I was going to be rattled by this transition, but the closer we got to this day, the more monumental it seemed. It's not just that she's going to a new place, or that she's going to be away from home (she has been going to daycare basically her whole life), it's that she is entering into the highway that is the beginning of zooming her away from me. It's a relinquishing of control, and we all know how I feel about control, it's gearing up for a terrain of several outside influences, it's a fear that she will get hurt. It's also an excitement for her, because she is such a wonderful little spark, and she will learn so many things, be molded in unexpected ways, and I just have to keep doing this thing of trusting and trying my best... this all just marks the transition into a much bigger scale. Leveling up.

The moment I almost lost it is when we got on the school bus. They had a school bus parked outside in the back where the bus will be dropping the kids off, so that the kids (and come on let's be real, the parents) could see what it was like to go from the bus, into the school, and walk all the way to their classroom. We walked up into the park school bus, and Sloane was giddy with excitement (she's been asking since last year when she will get to ride the school bus) but I all of a sudden felt super emotional and almost teared up! I had never ridden a school bus as a kid, and this bus looked so huge and Sloane looked so tiny, and imagining her getting on this big bus by herself, encountering a bus full of kids she didn't know, and writing by herself all the way to school, got me choked up. Obviously, she's ready but I'm not. 

I didn't think I was going to be this kind of mom! But apparently I am, and you better believe I'm going to see her get on that bus that first day and then drive to school so that I can watch her get off and get to her classroom (apparently, all the parents do this. When Ken and I first heard this was a thing, we laughed, and then immediately decided we needed to do it too.)

Anyways, I'll report back next week on the state of affairs. In the meanwhile, I wanted to share some photos of a morning we had in Norfolk this past weekend. We go often to Virginia Beach to visit Ken's family, but never go to Norfolk so this was a first for us. We had a delicious brunch at Toast and then went to the Chrysler Museum of Art. I never knew but it is a great museum !! It's free, beautiful, and they have an amazing glass exhibit. I would love to go back for another visit.

We had gotten to the museum before they open (they open at noon on Sundays) so we spent our time waiting in this small garden next to the entrance. It was serene, quiet and lovely.