End of Summer Emotions

The end of summer is approaching and it has snuck up on me out of no where.  Three weeks and my first born will enter the world of kindergarten.  I’m sure I’ll have many more posts about the start of school and what it all means to me and to Blake and yada yada yada.  It’s a really big deal.  Bigger than I ever thought it really would be.  If you would have asked me five years ago if I thought I’d be all emotional about kindergarten I would have said no.  But now that we are here, in this moment, it has been really affecting me.  But this start of the school year isn’t just a big deal because of kindergarten.  My other baby, the real “baby” of the family, is starting preschool.  And I think I’m equally as emotional and maybe more so about that than Blake’s kindergarten start.  Brady’s first few years of life were rough.  Rough on all of us.  It has affected all four of us in different ways.  Brady might not necessarily remember the endless tests and needles and iv’s and doctor visits and hospital stays, but its sure made him untrusting and fearful of doctors in a major way.  So fearful he doesn’t even trust standing on a scale at a doctor’s office and will gag and throw up from being so upset if you try to make him.  It’s awful.  It breaks my heart.  Brad and I both have scars on our hearts from watching our baby endure all he went through.  From being so so sick for so long.  From the unknowns.  From the stress and the worry of what was wrong, what the future held.  From watching our baby limp in my arms not breathing.  From watching him sleep in a hospital bed.  It has stayed with us.  Brad and I will be lying in bed at night and will hear a cough through the other side of the wall and Brad and I’s hearts fall into our stomachs with fear and then we remember he’s ok.  He’s better now.  We certainly do not think about it every day or hardly at all these days really, since he’s been so incredibly healthy.  But its changed us as parents for sure. 

For the last two and a half (close to it) years I have been at home with my two boys.  Leaving a job I had once loved to try in a sense nurse Brady back to health, to give him a chance to get healthy and stay healthy.  It was a hard choice for many reasons but hands down the best decision we could have made.  Brady has been so healthy and thriving and for that result any of the sacrifices we’ve had to make along the way are completely worth it.  I’ve had these last few years with both my boys at home, spending every day with them.  Some days, some weeks have been hard.  Some days, some weeks have been challenging, but I’m grateful, so truly grateful for that time.  I will never, ever regret it.  But all of that time is what makes my boys leaving me that much harder.  Brady has not left my side pretty much these last few years.  I am his safety net.  I am his comfort.  Having him with me is my safety net, my comfort in a way too.  With me I know he is healthy.  With me I know he is happy.  We are entering the world of the unknowns again.  Will he adjust to being away from me?  Will he be in tears all day?  Will he make friends easily?  Will his health sustain the germs of school?  Will we end up in the place we once were?  Life is full of unknowns, and I have to trust in above and know he will be in great hands. (Just found out he will have same teachers as Blake, YAY!)  We can’t keep Brady in a bubble forever.  I have to learn to let go.  How hard it is though.