James visits Cillian

Doug and I have been talking about where Cillian will go to school next year. We'd like him to go where it's best for him to go if that makes sense. I'm sure if doesn't. It's a hard thing to discuss and it's an even more difficult thing to put down in writing here. There are a lot of variables and there are two main possibilities. There's the current Montessori where both boys are right now. And we've been hearing about the special ed program available free to us through the public school system. Technically it's not free - we pay for it through our taxes - but it's free to us because we're residents. If someone from one town up wanted to send their kids here, they'd pay tuition. And the same to us if we wanted to send the boys to another public school one town over.

I began breeching the subject with James bit by bit over a good period of time and slowly it began to sink in that there was a possibility that Cillian and he might not be going to the same school next year. And then he said something that really reflected his state of mind. He said with concern and a little bit of alarm, "But I haven't even visited him yet!" And there it was. One of the biggest pros of having them at the same school. At Montessori, siblings can visit each other in their respective classrooms but it is most common for the elder child to visit the younger. The day he realized this I asked his teacher about it at drop off and she said "of course he can go."

I asked Cillian's teacher what would be a good time and since we're starting to separate, she suggested the earlier the better and then I can separate from Cillian by saying I have to take James back upstairs to his classroom. Cills has class on Mondays and Fridays so we set it up for Friday the 16th; 8:40am. We decided to keep it a secret from Cillian.

When James walked in to the room, Cillian's smile and excitement brought a smile to everyone's face. Even his classmates. A Mom I'm close with got tears in her eyes. No one could take their eyes off of them. Cillian showed James everything. James kept saying, "I remember this work!" They even did a work or two together. Cillian showed James the guinea pigs or dogs as he calls them. It's a step up from squirrel - his previous title for them.

It finally dawned on me to take pictures of them. I only got a couple because I just was so in love with them sharing this experience together. It was very special. It had a lot of meaning to me because we don't know if this will happen again. When it was time for me to bring James back to his room, we told Cillian goodbye and that I would meet him back here for snack. Cillian has done really well separating so far. Way way WAY better than James did when he went through this process.

I brought James up to his room and gave him the biggest hug I could without crying and I thanked him so much for coming down there to visit Cillian. He was holding a drawing Cillian did for him so tightly in his hands and said "I loved it Mom."

And there you go.