Roots And Wings

My Mom gave me a cross stitch a long time ago that says give your children roots and wings. Today Elijah spread his wings just a little.  {tear}

Last week Lijee and I enjoyed his last week of summer whilst the bigs were in school. We went to the zoo, had lunch out, went to a movie, had lunch at the movie, watched movies at home; overall doing special things together. All along he has never wanted to go to school, always claiming he'd rather stay home with me. Yesterday he mentioned his last day of summer and said pre-k would be sad. I asked why and with the saddest face you've ever seen and a voice barely audible he whispered, "Because I'll miss you." 

Then we both cried a little.

Once that was out of the way, he was good to go today. Whew! I did not think I was going to be able to handle it if he cried and didn't want me to go.

 Here he is opening his day before school pre-k gift. A red water bottle with monster trucks that says smash--all things he likes.

I picked out a nice outfit for the first day, but he picked these out instead.  I didn't want to upset him on the first day, and at least they matched.

He's bug-eyed here because sometimes when I tell him to look at the camera and try to smile he gets really wide eyes.

 He is not blinking here…sometimes when he tries to smile he gets tiny little slits for eyes.

 Most of the time he just doesn't try to smile for the camera.

The bigs were very supportive of their baby brother 

going to school.

No other mommies even walked their kiddos into class. It was hard to hold the tears back but so embarrassing to be seen crying that I contained them. Until I got into the car. I remembered baby Lijee looking over at Daisy's empty carseat on her first day and asking, "Da-dee?" Waterworks today just as big as 3 years ago but I was left to cry all alone in the car today.

Butt.

(I added that because that is his favorite word and I asked him to please not say it at school. He asked if he could say words that had butt in it, like butter.)