life and puppies

I’m not so good with change. Since about February, I’ve been wrestling with the knowledge that Bear will switch classrooms next week and I haven’t handled the news all that well. In September, when she started in her current classroom, she was supposed to stay there, with all of her pals, until the end of August. But they decided to change that because, they said, all of the kids were ready for preschool. Deep sigh. I was ok with that, I guess, but I wasn’t really ok with the idea that she is being split from her bestie and instead being placed in a classroom with her mortal enemy (too strong?). You see, in Montessori schools, or at least in ours, part of the emphasis in preschool and school-aged kids is on mixed-aged classrooms. The idea is that the little ones learn from the bigger kids and that all of us really learn best by teaching others, so the big ones learn from helping their littler friends. While I love this idea in theory, recently it’s hit me how scary this is for me. Bear will now be with kids ages three to six and she will be one of the youngest. And her best pal will be in the classroom next door. She happily announces to me, “I’m going to Classroom Two!” all the time, and I now know (or think I know) that she understands what this means because she has visited the new classroom several times. But I’m unsure that she understands at all how her day will be different. The summer will be, I suppose, a nice transition because the classrooms will be smaller and all of the kids will be in the outdoor space together. But still. It’s a big change. She loves her friend so much and in a way that I think is rather rare for three-year-olds. I don’t think they stifle each other, but instead encourage each other to try new things and grow. And really, they’re just so sweet together. I will miss seeing that. It’s been such a lovely part of my day. It’s something I didn’t really anticipate as part of parenthood: seeing your kid love another kid. It’s really neat.

So maybe I’m just being selfish, but I keep hoping that something will change. That someone will tell me that they’ve decided to keep the girls together afterall. I know I just need to pull myself together and recognize it’s going to be ok. That she’ll be ok. But still. Why can’t good things just stay exactly as they are? Why is the one constant change? It’s so annoying.