Next month, my little boy turns three. It will have been three years since he arrived in this world, long, pink and screaming. In three years he has grown so much, come so far, yet he is still but a baby in the scale of things. He has so much still to learn and he is desperate to take it all in.
In only two short weeks, he will attend his first session at nursery. We spent lots of time researching different options in our area, visiting the nurserys and choosing the one we thought would best suit our little boy. Dylan will join the preschool unit in a local nursery and spend 15 hours of his week with 26 other children who, just like him, will start school next year.
Many of his friends already attend and I have heard only good things. We looked round and Dylan fitted right in, getting stuck in with puzzles, chatting to the staff and not wanting to go home at the end of our visit. He is sociable, friendly and confident and I have no worries that he won't slot in. We have daily questions about when he can start, he is desperate to follow his friends through the blue gates and when we do the nursery run to pick up a friend's son once a week, he loudly tells anyone who will listen that this will soon be his nursery too.
He is ready, well and truly ready. He wants more, he wants different and he wants to be with other people his size. I, however, am a little nervous. For three years, he has been with me. I have left him with family and carefully selected friends. I have chosen every child that he plays with, am aware of every game he knows, every word he can say, and when he cries, I am there to dry the tears.
Nursery will mean other people get to see my little boy, have a say in how he thinks, what he learns and how he plays. They will witness a side of him that I never will. and I am sad that this period of his childhood is about to end. He will be starting in slowly, doing two 9-12 morning sessions per week over the summer holiday to make childcare arrangements easier, and then taking his 15 hour free quota from September.
It is a big move for my little boy, but one which he is ready for, and one which I need to be ready for too.