The end of the school year always makes me melancholy, I can only imagine what I'll be like when my kids are really graduating from school for the final time.
Today was Magpie's last day of nursery school. She came home with a whole bag full of swag, including all of her day-to-day stuff from class - her carpet square for circle time, her chair name tag, her yellow triangle with her photo on it which was used to check in every morning, and perhaps most touchingly, her (handmade) Shabbat Ima necklace, complete with her Hebrew name, Varda.
Three years later... and yes, I still have it.
All these things were in her classroom day in and day out, and of course amongst the bustle of a rainy Tuesday morning or a hurried pick-up on a way to a dentist appointment, were the most mundane things in the world. Now, out-of-context and lying around our apartment, they are of course overwhelmingly touching.
And like so many things with one's child's childhood, I am suddenly filled with regret for every moment this past year that I complained about, rushed past, or simply didn't appreciate. Or, as Magpie would say, "no more pre-school."
Goodbye, and thank you, Chabad Early Learning Center.
Magpie just finished second grade in suburban New Jersey. How times change.
My youngest starts his first year at Chabad in New Jersey this fall.
I wish I knew where the time went.
