Time is flying

Yesterday was a pretty big day here at Chaos Headquarters...it was Sophie's Prep Orientation Day! The plan was that everyone would meet in the Hall, the kids would go off to the Prep classrooms for a morning of play while the parents stayed in the hall for an information session regarding the school and enrolment process. Great idea in theory. When it came to practical application, Sophie had other plans...

We arrived and she seemed happy enough. She gripped onto my hand and stayed right by my side, which is understandable considering how overwhelming walking into a crowded hall must be for a four year old. We signed in and lined up in one of the rows of children ready to head off to the classrooms. I was chatting to parents and introducing Sophie to other children but she was glued to me. She refused to sit down with the other kids in line and kept pleading that she didn't want me to leave her. No amount of reassuring her made any difference and when it came time for us to part ways, she was literally climbing up me, screaming and crying. I felt awful. It is so hard seeing your usually confident, self assured and happy child absolutely terrified and in tears. I tried handing her over to the teacher but she wouldn't have a bar of it. I ended up going up to the classroom with her, during which time she would burst into tears if I was more than 1 metre away from her. It was heartbreaking! I was nearly in tears thinking about how on Earth she was going to cope when it comes time to actually go to school! She eventually settled down a little bit and I was able to duck off to the information session. We were apart for about 45 minutes and by the time we met back up in the hall, we were both anxious to see each other. I was relieved to see that Soph had a smile on her face and proudly showed me a picture she had drawn of herself in Prep. Phew!

I honestly have no idea how we got to this school stage so fast! It seems like only a month ago I was holding my precious little newborn daughter in my arms and promising her the world. Now here we are, nearly five years later, and I don't feel I have given her what I wanted to in that time. Of course I know I have given her some pretty great  things like a sense of belonging, a solid family foundation from which she knows she is loved immeasurably and a happy childhood full of wonderful memories (I am just hoping she doesn't remember all my shortcomings...hopefully she never reads this blog!!) But with all the great things aside, it is only human nature to look at the not so great things I have done and even worse, the things I haven't done and focus on them. 

I can't change anything about the last five years but I can make a change starting today. I have six more months of having my baby home before she goes off to school and I am going to step up my game (no idea how yet, that will have to be a later post when I have had more time to think about it). My advice to anyone out there would be to make the most of every single day you have with your children because the time just flies by.