Last night I went to my son’s preschool’s silent auction. We sent our oldest kid to this preschool in the fall of 2011, right after moving to Pennsylvania, and we attended our first fundraising event in spring 2012. My family has had a child at this preschool every school year except 2021-2022 (after kid #4 finished kindergarten there and before kid #5 started 3-morning-a-week preschool).
The little guy will be going to the public kindergarten this fall (they finally made it full-day kindergarten) and so this is our last gala, at least as parents of a current student. It’s been quite the run! I’m glad we’ve been able to send our kids to the same place, and to get to know a school. This fundraiser has become something of a staple in our April calendar, even though it’s been different places and had different formats over the years. Last night we played bingo. We also won a pair of Eagles tickets in the live auction (and a signed football) and then my kid will get to be “principal for the day” (a silent auction item). Fun stuff.
Because my little guy came so long after my other kids, I feel like I’ve been in the “little kid” era forever. But now my family really is mostly a “big kid” family. Last night really was a reminder of that!
On to this week’s content…At Before Breakfast I interviewed long-time friend of the blog Molly Beck about tech (she has a substack called “Beck on Tech”) and networking (she wrote a book many years ago called “Reach Out”). Please check that out! I also ran a short episode called “Don’t assign it if you won’t do it.” There is no point in putting something on your daily to-do list if you don’t actually intend to do it. It’s just as not done as if you never put it on the list in the first place!
Over at Vanderhacks, my Substack newsletter, I wrote about the wisdom of deciding to “Keep small things small.” I suggested people “Take 1000 steps after dinner.” Behind the paywall I wrote about how to “Stop feeling starved for time,” and then “How to slow time down.”
Thanks so much for reading my work!
This is truly a beautiful time of year here. The photo accompanying this post is of some cherry trees in my front yard.
I only have two kiddos, so my era was MUCH shorter, but I remember thinking it was going to be bittersweet to finish at our BELOVED preschool. Laura, it was just sweet. It was so nice to only have to juggle one school pickup, to not have to send changes of clothes and sign in/out. And it was even nicer to not keep paying tuition. (Both our kids go to a public school). Now both kids had the same daily schedule, the same holidays/vacation days. Loved it!
The other day I saw a friend getting back from that same preschool and carting out a huge pile of laundry for her toddler and I turned to my husband and said: “I am so glad that phase is behind us!”
It was amazing while we were in it, but that was one era I was very happy about 🙂
@Elisabeth – yep, it’s been great, but it’s also great to have bigger kids. I won’t ever get one drop off though! Too many kids spread too far apart for that 🙂
Love being a friend of the blog and loved being on Before Breakfast!!