When I started this project, I knew nothing about blogging, themes or pages on wordpress. It still feels like I know very little, but somehow I tried my best to make it a place where I could interact with people that have similar interests. This need of showing up and doing my best was something I felt compelt to do. It was a duty, imposed by me out of respect. For myself and more important, for others. To, at list, show up and do my best.

My daughter is finishing kindergarten this June. She will go to school in September, where everything will be brand new: new teacher, new collegues, new classroom, new rules. A big, scarry unknown for her and also for us, her parents. It will be the start of a new chapter in her life; with duties and lots of things to do and lots of homeworks. A place where she will have to show up every day and do her best because she will have no other option.

She often asks me, in a small, almost crying voice, if I will go with her in the classroom. Of course she knows that it won’t be possible, but she still asks me. Is a thing she does, more like a ritual for her to be more brave in facing this big unknown she will meet soon. And somehow she is also morning the preschooler that she will no longer be. The chair she will no longer take in her actual classroom. The love she think will be lost in her kindergarten teacher’s heart. The memory of her, when all of her friends will go to different schools in town.

It is a process and her mind knows it. She cannot go over it or under it; she has to go through it. As the brave brothers from the book “We’re going on a bear hunt” found out, when you’re facing a big, scary problem you have to solve it.

I try to tell her the truth about the journey that awaits her: it will be hard sometimes, as any begining is; some days she will cry or laugh or miss me. She will learn new things and she would do everything to earn her place there, in the new group. She will not always be her best and she would sometimes fail. But she will try again and again until she will get the work done. Even if she hates not knowing stuff or how to do things.

And most important, I try to explain her that school will be her job, it will be her duty to show up and do the best that she can. And that she will be ok. I let her have her fears and worries, as one cannot tell a 6 yo:”Hey, listen, you don’t have to be afraid of the big unknown in front of you”. Because it is a normal emotion to feel scared. And to be excited and curious also. After all, is the journey that we remember, right? And the friends we meet along the way and all the things we discover. Because in the end every kid will learn to write and read and will certainly know the time table. So the journey is all that matters and we have to make the most out of it.

More on the books presented below: Going places by Peter and Paul Reynolds , The kissing hand by Audrey Penn, one of my favourite children’s book of all time, The pigeon has to go to school by Mo Willems and a funny Usborne book, Wild school