Blog Break

I am taking a little blog break for a couple weeks while I prepare for an upcoming arts & crafts show that I am planning. I will be posting some of the things I'm working on, but don't really have time for my normal blogging right now. You can check out of craft show on our blog: Stop, Shop & Stroll. We have some great vendors and some of them have websites and/or Etsy pages with their great items. The website is currently being updated, so keep checking back. I'm working to get all of the vendor information up now.

A New Milestone

Editorial By Shaila Creekmore, Illustration By Brittney Guest as printed in the Aug. 09 issue of Jonesboro Occasions.

As parents, we go through many milestones with our children, first steps, a first tooth, learning to ride a bike. This month, I will join my oldest son in another of these milestones as I walk him through the doors of Valley View Elementary for his first day of kindergarten.

Samuel has long awaited this day. I on the other hand have not. While I am excited about all of the new things that school will bring him, this is one more step in his becoming a “big boy.”

In the next week or so, we will head to Wal-Mart to buy all of his school supplies and get him ready for that first big day. He’s excited to pick out his new boxes of crayons and markers and to buy new scissors and glue. And he’ll probably show me all of the things he’ll want to pack in his lunch each day.

The past two years, Samuel has attended pre-k two days a week, leaving us three weekdays to spend together. For nearly six years, he has been my sidekick, going with me to run errands, to the mall, on play dates, to the park, out to lunch with friends, to the library or just spending a lazy day around the house. It will certainly be different not to have him with me on those days.

And the same thing recently occurred to him. He, however, is not as concerned so much with not having the extra time with me as he is that baby brother will be getting all of that alone time with Momma while he’s at school. I just remind him though that he and I had four years with just the two of us before Tyler came, Tyler and I have never had any time for just the two of us. This hasn’t quite persuaded him yet. He recently told me I should just go to work more since he’ll be at school anyway.

And I’m a bit curious of what Tyler will think about big brother being gone all day. Will he be excited to have the extra Mommy time? Will he look around the house for big brother the first few days? Will he even notice?

Samuel isn’t sure he wants to go to school five days a week and sometimes reminds me that he was able to learn all he needed to know going only two days a week. I reassure him that there is much more to learn and that he’ll like being able to see his friends everyday. We talk often about all the things he’ll be able to learn and do at school, but mostly he’s just curious about the important things like how big the playground is and if there’s a slide.