Yesterday was the first day of school.

Not for Jake.  Oh no.  I'm not putting that one in preschool.  I've looked into them, and there are no matches to be found.  They are mostly half-day programs, and the ones that aren't are thousands of dollars a year or run by a bunch of hippies.  Not that I don't pay thousands for daycare, but he is loved at daycare.  He loves it there.  It's structured, but not obnoxiously so.  Also, Jake has plenty of school in his future.  I'm okay with letting this year pass.

Have you met Jake?  He runs circles around socialization and making friends.  He'll be fine.  I'll be fine.  We'll all be fine.

A lot of the preschools around here teach colors and letters and numbers and opposites and cut and paste and all that crap.  Yeah, no.  My kid is doing arithmetic and spelling and sounding out words.  He would go ballistic if someone sat him down and tried to teach him what the number 142 and the word CAT looked like.
My kid would be a total asshole in school.  A behavior problem.  The fidgety bored kid the teacher hates.
So, he'll wait to go to school until next year.  Until the law sanctions his attendance.

Kindergarten was recently made mandatory in Philadelphia.  Before that, you didn't have to go.  Strange, no?  Pennsylvania has all sorts of weird school rules.  Until a couple years ago, you didn't have to be enrolled until age 8, and if you belonged to a certain sect, you could leave at 13.  I think the Amish were ruling our state.  Somehow.  Or something.

Every day this year, I'll be saying to myself "next year this time Jake will be in kindergarten".  There won't be any more back to school days that he won't be a part of for the next 12-20 years.  Only one more winter break that he will have the pleasure of not looking forward too.  One more summer that he won't count the days til.

Craziness.  They weren't kidding when they said this all happens fast.

Last weekend we took advantage of the Labor Day Mattress Sale and bought a big bed for Jake.  His crib converted into a toddler bed, and that turns into a full sized bed that he'll sleep in for the next 14 years.  At least.  I spent a few hours on Sunday doing the conversion (I rock at that sort of stuff, if you ever buy anything that needs to be put together, call me.  I'm a whiz at diy furniture as long as you leave me alone with the task).  I somehow managed to fit a full size bed into a bite sized room and still make space for a wagon full of toys and about six square inches to play with them.  Score. 

I can't stop staring at that big empty bed frame.  The mattress comes on Friday, and I feel like it's somehow about to change my life.

It won't, but it certainly stands for something that will.