day seventy-seven: introducing the preschool days

 "Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves."    -- Marcelene Cox

 
It’s preschool time! My favorite ages of children have always been ages four to six, ever since our semi-strong-willed second born went from a difficult three year old to an absolutely-blissful-four-year-old. (That did not magically happen, as you will learn when we dig into toddlers later this year. It took hard work, perseverance, and consistency that were all literally, “super human”!)


Over the next two weeks, we will be sharing boatloads of tips and strategies for parenting preschoolers—from scheduling their day, to love and affirmation, to bringing in the boundaries when things get out of control, and much more.


And we will do all of this using our yet-unpublished-children’s book, Jonathan’s Journal. Jonathan’s Journal is a look at the life of a day of one of our preschoolers, specifically, our sweet, sweet Jonathan, who is now a sweet, sweet seventeen year old. Someday if we get an illustrator and our little publishing company can afford it, we will publish our first children’s picture book—and add pictures and life to my special story.


In the meantime, we will use it as a teaching tool here and in our workshops. The book goes through Jonathan’s day, from his perspective. It gives details about his life on that day—from getting out of bed to doing his chores—to helping with little brother. And as we follow Jonathan through his days, we will have dozens of “mini-lessons” about parenting preschoolers.


We will post the story in its entirety tomorrow, but I want to leave you with the story of when I first shared Jonathan’s Journal in a workshop at the Ohio state homeschool convention several years ago. Just like I am doing on this blog, I first read the entire book aloud. Then, as I will here over the next couple of weeks, I went through it step-by-step, teaching from it. I had prepared thoroughly and was excited about the prospect of using a preschooler’s journal to teach parenting. It seemed the ideal combination—a real “day in the life of” followed by teaching about each aspect. I was not, however, prepared for the emotional onslaught of reading the book aloud.


I began reading it, and within ninety seconds, I began tearing up. A minute later, I was pausing, trying to regain my composure. Mid-way through, I lost it completely and absolutely could not continue. I just stood up there in front of two hundred people and bawled and bawled. Someone brought me some tissues, and in a few minutes, I began reading again, sniffling my way through. By the end of the book, I was in complete meltdown, and I again stopped for two or three minutes, sobbing.


More tissues were brought to me—and as I looked out on the crowd, many of the two hundred parents in the audience were crying as well! (That helped, actually, as it was a pretty comical sight to see this room full of people with Kleenexes, dabbing their eyes and trying to hold back the tears, most unsuccessfully.)


I regained my composure and began the teaching—and it was an awesome time of learning and sharing. I got more positive feedback from that workshop than most any other I have done—in spite of my weeping.


Something just hit me as I read about the special days that Jonathan and I used to share—that my little guy was ten—and would never be a preschooler again! He was one of the sweetest little boys I have ever met, honestly. And I loved sharing my days with him.


The moral of today’s story: cherish every moment. I know you hear that over and over again—that they will be grown up too soon, etc. etc. And I didn’t believe it twenty years ago either—but now I do. And part of my job as an older, I mean, experienced, mom is to tell you the truth: kids grow up too fast. Enjoy every day with your preschoolers.