butterflies

Today was big sis' graduation party at her elementary school. It was beautiful and emotional and I had butterflies in my stomach the whole time.

A few parent volunteers helped the teacher orchestrate a finely tuned event. Every graduating child received apart from their diplomas and certain special medals, the serious part, a special award to celebrate a talent of theirs. An idea which I found sensational. Over the last weeks, I scoured all the dollar stores to get a small fun gift: binoculars for the curious kid, a microphone for the talkative kid, a small address book for the friendly kid, etc. Instead of the graduating hat, we gave them each some funky sunglasses.

Interspersed with the award presentations, some of the kids performed dance and music numbers. My big girl even played the piano. A difficult piece of her repertoire and boy where those butterflies going! But she did a great job.

Afterwards refreshments and snacks/cakes were served. The kids received a "yearbook": each child wrote a page about themselves, their experiences at their school, their hopes for the future. The kids were going around getting autographs from each other. Pictures were being snapped left and right.

95% of the kids are going to the same high school next fall. Big sis however, decided to apply for this particular enriched program in another school. We got her letter of acceptance last week. It was elation and trepidation combined. Only one other classmate is following this same path.

So today, watching all these kids graduate got me all emotional. They're a great bunch. I've known most of them for the past 6 years and their parents too. I felt a certain sadness when I realized I may not see some of them again. Must be tough for teachers to go thorugh this every year.

Then I started worrying. Are we doing a good thing removing big sis from this tight knit froup to send her to another school where she won't know too many? Sure, they say they will keep in touch. Great intentions but often not carried through. Or maybe its a good thing to let her experience new friendships, starting with a clean slate.

Parental decision and turning points in kids' lives, definitely conducive to butterflies in the stomach. Its hard to leave the familiarity of a known school and known group of friends to face an uncertain future in a big school when all of a sudden they go from the oldest kids to the youngest ones.

Hope it all works out. We are giving her till Xmas in her new school to see how she fares and then we'll re-evaluate. One of the harder parts will be for her to get ready an hour earlier. We are used to her school starting at 9:15 whereas this new one will start at 8. And we are not really morning people around here :(