Happy Birthday Joey!

Tomorrow marks an important chapter in the life of my family.  First off, my first born is turning 5 years old tomorrow.  This seems so surreal, being the mother of a 5-year-old.  How can 5 years have passed already?  The days of nursing, rocking, and cuddling this little baby seem not so long ago.

And definitely not 5 years long ago.

In addition to my sweet boy turning 5, we are about to cross over to a whole new world tommorrow.  Elementary School.  That's right... my little guy is heading off to Kindergarten in the morning.  I am a bag of mixed emotions tonight as I think about my sweet little red-headed boy venturing off into the big world without me.

Obviously, I am happy for him.  First and foremost I am so excited for him to learn new things, make new friends, and spend his days having new adventures in school.  I can just imagine how entranced he will be at his first music class watching and learning about real musical instruments and songs.  He is a careful observer before he is a joiner, and I love picturing him watching and taking it all in.  I'm also enjoying envisioning him entering the cafeteria with his little Spiderman lunch box, and having a good time with new friends while they compare lunches and (hopefully) eat what their mommies packed for them.

There is another side of me that is completely terrified to drop that little guy off at the front of the huge school around the corner from our house, only to pick him up 7 hours later.  What if he doesn't know where to go?  What if there isn't anyone around to help him?  What if he cries that really loud, sad cry and it freaks out his teacher and classmates?  What if he falls at recess?  What if he falls asleep during rest time?  What if they lose him?  What if?  What if? My mind is a whirlwind of what if questions tonight, and I'll probably have to take Benadryl so I can sleep.  I know the rational answers to all of those questions.  But still.  What if?

Lastly, I'm sad.  Obviously I'm sad.  My baby boy is growing up and about to start living his life independent from me.  He has been by my side for 5 years.  That's a long time.  And as much as he drives me absolutely insane sometimes I'll miss him a lot.  He is the person I talk to most during the day. The first person I see (usually far earlier than I'd like) in the morning.  He gives me kisses, hugs, slurberts, and lots of love every single day and the thought of him not being around for all of that makes me super sad.  It's so weird that I won't know what he's doing at any given moment in the day.  I know it's time, but I'm just not ready to let go.  (It's a good thing we base the decision of going to Kindergarten on their readiness, not ours, huh?)

Regardless of how I feel about it, it's here.  The time has come for Joey to spread his little wings and fly.  So with any luck I'll get back on here this week sometime and update y'all with how he's doing.  I'll leave you with some recent pics of my goofy 5! year old while we celebrated his birthday this weekend...