milestone

Zoe had her last day of preschool this week. Mark took her picture before she left. She had chosen the same outfit she wore for her school picture this year. On her school picture the orange shirt has a noticeable wet spot on it. She had been sobbing and sucking on her shirt a few minutes before the picture was taken. Her face looks normal enough, but the shirt was a reminder to me, as the picture hung in my office, that preschool did not begin easily for Zoe. It was a tiny dose of mommy-guilt as a I worked. Every mom needs a little, right? Oy.

But there she was on Thursday, in the same shirt. Beaming. Running in to show her teachers what she was wearing. Not even looking back as she joined circle time. And when I came to pick her up, she was holding her friend Anna’s hands and singing with the class “shalom my friend, ’til we meet again.” I could have become a puddle on the floor, had I let myself.

We capped off her last day of preschool by attending the yearly preschool ice cream social in the evening. I caught on film a candid moment with Zoe and one of her teachers. It’s no secret why Zoe’s preschool year turned around. She was, obviously, gently loved by her kind and amazing teachers into becoming a more confident child of God. Oh, those teachers could never know the high place they hold in my heart!