The Last Day

Yesterday was the girls’ last day of preschool. Throughout the year, classmates have brought goodie bags and little treats to celebrate the holidays, so I thought it would be nice to finally send some treats in with the girls to say good-bye.

I thought long and hard about what I wanted to include in each good-bye goodie bag. I even asked the girls, since it’s for their friends and all, but I couldn’t come up with any great ideas. The perfect excuse for a trip to Target! I knew I didn’t want to include candy, but I did want some sort of snack, so I grabbed a few boxes of fruit gummies.

The other items came mostly from the party section. I grabbed a few bags of these funny looking rings. The big googly eyes caught my attention, and although they’re just dumb little trinkets, I figured they’d be fun to play with before ultimately ending up in the trash. I also grabbed a few bags off those giant balloons with the rubber bands on the end. I used to love when my dad would be them from the homeless man on the corner and bring them home for us.

Just a few aisles down from the party favors were the school supplies. I picked up the 120-pack of Crayolas for the girls and I to melt down into shaped crayons. We spent Wednesday morning peeling paper off of crayons and breaking them apart before placing them into molds. Each tray of crayons baked for about 10 minutes at 225, then cooled briefly on the counter top before being moved to the fridge to harden for about an hour.

Each baggie came together with a little note, brought to you by PowerPoint. Thanks US Army 😉 After tying 40 little bags and breaking crayons all morning, my finger tips ached. It was totally worth it though to have the girls excited to bring treats to school.

When I picked them up in the afternoon I cried, as expected. All of the teachers were so sweet with their good-byes and hugs for the girls. V’s main teacher gave each of the three girls big hugs and kisses before we headed out. I’ll miss her the most. The love and patience that she shows to each of her students is indescribable. Just thinking about her has me in tears again.

Man, if the last day of school is going to cause me to cry, I’m not going to be able to do another 18 years of this.