After eight years we no longer have any children in nursery. Child B finished this summer, and that's it.
It seems like a long time, and it is. One way or another we've had contact with the nursery for nine years, we first went when Sara was pregnant with Child A to reserve them a place. More than a year before they would need it, and more bizarrely, before they were even born.
When A was almost a year old, we visited again to prepare their start, and I remember looking at a pair of six year olds, sitting lounging by a table and chatting. Their poses reminded me of teenagers, a world away from the 'baby' we were carrying with us, who could say three words and couldn't quite walk yet.
It was almost the same for B, just a bit older because the COVID pandemic delayed their start. The second time we were a little more sure of what we were doing. B and A can be very different, but we knew all the practical everyday things already, like what time things happen, and so we didn't have to try to learn that again in parallel to helping B transition into nursery.
And now the World has turned enough times, and both have outgrown nursery; something that feels inevitable but equally impossible. They can walk, run, jump and talk. Oh the talking, and endless chatter about their favourite topics, or inventing excuses why they shouldn't have to tidy up, and why they are allowed an ice cream. They don't seem like teenagers, like those other six year olds did to me, but sometimes you could believe they're practising.
I'm pretty sure they had good time at nursery, they say they did. We're very grateful for the excellent staff, who helped them everyday, with big and small problems, took them on trips, and provided a safe place where they could learn how to socialise and interact with lots of other children, from lots of different backgrounds.
This weekend when my parents were visiting we looked back through the 'portfolios' of each child that the staff lovingly put together. These are a grey lever arch file, where the staff collect photos, artworks and notes on the children over the years, starting on their first day, and ending with the final group photo. It's a beautiful thing for them to have created, and an emotional bullet straight to the heart of any parent.
I've been anticipating the wistful feeling that the end of this chapter will bring, the strange kind of happy sadness, the 'nostalgia of the now', and I'm trying to be present for it. Not to wallow in it, but perhaps try and savour it a little bit - like a drink that tastes too bitter, focus on how it's bitter and see the different shades and tastes that emerge when you're concentrating on it. While A already left nursery for school a couple of years ago, they've been there regularly for pick-ups and other events like the summer party, so they've had plenty of chances to go back, and say hello to their old teachers.
But with B we won't have that, it'll be an abrupt end; after visiting a place for eight years, seeing the same places, buildings and garden, now we probably won't visit again. I always find these kinds of sudden transitions strange, I don't know what the alternative would be, but it's disconcerting to me how absolute the end is. I've experienced this before, we all have; perhaps moving house, changing jobs, or leaving school. For my first full time job I cycled to work, through mostly the same streets, for about five years. I must have known every corner, lamppost and pothole along the route, and then I moved jobs, and never I never rode it again. It's also not something I'd go back and revisit, I might meet friends that still live there, but I wouldn't re-travel the commute.
While I'm in the middle of reminiscing, B is looking forward to and is excited about the change to school. They'll have some of their existing friends in their class, and they know the school already a bit, having seen A there and visited themselves. B's been to the summer party, the lantern walk, the playground etc. As parents we'll also know the routines already, what to bring for sports, where the canteen is, what material they'll learn.
I hope that means we can be more attentive to their needs, instead of trying to figure out what we're meant to do in parallel, but I also worry it means that B doesn't get quite the same sense of newness, uncertainty and excitement from us that A does.
It's too easy for me to look backward, and not forward at this time. I'm acutely aware that A, being first, always ends up being the start of something, and B ends up doing something that, as a family, we experience for the last time. I worry that this is unfair, and that instead of focusing on what's new for B, I'm looking more to what's ending for us.
I have to remember though, that for B it'll still mostly be new and exciting, and maybe a little scary. It's probably too easy for me to see what's the same, and not what's different, because of the immediate similarities to the new routine and environment that A is already in. But B is a different person, with different friends, classmates and teachers; so their experience will be unique, and we won't anticipate everything. I've got try and see it through their eyes - that way I'll be better at understanding what they need, but it'll also be more new to me.