The Baby That Never Was…

Boo starts kindergarten in the formal education system in 2 weeks. It would be an understatement to say she’s excited and looking forward to big school… she is just so ready for it.

My biggest fear is that she may be slightly disappointed in what big school has to offer a 4 year old who has been in a private 3-4 year old kindy program for the past year. Of course, there are still many things that Boo can benefit from and many things to learn but her expectations of what school kindy has to offer her far exceed what early childhood education is about!

Sadly, Boo has been in a rush to do everything from the day she was born. She never slowed down to be just a baby. Every milestone was met early, rolling at 6 weeks from tummy to back, rolling everywhere by 4 months, crawling at 5.5 months, walking just before 10 months.

As for speech, at 3 months she would mouth and cooo her response in conversations, by 9 months she had a string of understandable words, by 12 months she was stringing together short sentences and before 18 months she would hold an intelligent conversation with you (daycare  moved her in with older children as she had no-one to talk to in the under 2’s room)!

Looking in her child health book, the nurses comments at her 18 month check up is full of exclamation marks about Boo’s advanced language and comprehension skills, building towers of 7 blocks, her mature pencil grip and ability to draw shapes, her knowledge of all the colours (this is when I realised Boo was a bit special)!

At 14 months, Boo toilet trained herself by leaving behind a trail of wet nappies (she would remove them herself when they were wet! The carers at daycare were the one’s that encouraged me to follow her lead despite my thoughts she was too young. On her 2nd birthday she informed me she would not be wearing nappies to bed anymore!!!!

In the last few months she’s even looking way more grown up

As much as I wanted to baby, my only child, she never gave me the chance. I have shed tears at every milestone she met way too early. There has been nothing I could do to stop her in her rush to not be a baby.

Yes, I’m very proud of my independent and precocious 4 year old, but I have days where I mourn the fact, that my baby was never a baby in the true sense. Now that she’s nearly off to big school, I’m beginning to mourn the fact she’ll become more independent of me and not be my baby anymore, just my little school girl.

I do rejoice at the fact that the stimulation she’ll get from a new setting an be a good thing.