The tears rolled down my face this morning as I dropped Nibbles and Bubbles off for the last time together…  For in September, Bubbles moves to Junior school and this well worn path we have walked over a thousand times will change forever.

And tears continue to drop silently onto my desk as love and pride pour out in this letter to their school and teachers.

Thank You For Helping Me Adjust

Thank you for friendly children who enveloped Bubbles in a curious entourage when we first visited the school over four years ago now.  For finding me lost in the staff car park and welcoming me to your school.

Thank you for being astonished at how well my newly adopted children had settled [Head] for that moment of connection meant the world to me and helped me know that this was the school for them.

Thank you for gradually helping me to let go of Bubbles as she joined your pre-school when I was far from ready, when I worried about her, when I wanted to keep her at my side, when everything was so new.  Thank you for calming my fears those first few months when I felt disconnected from my child who had only so recently entered my life.

Thank you for guiding me through the school process, with your meetings and resources to update me on how schools have changed in the forty years since I was in primary school/ reception/ rhinos or whatever it is called now.

Thank you for helping me get to grips with phonics instead of the names of letters, even if I have never really got the hang of U and Y – but not for making Dr Seuss books almost impossible to read since they no longer rhyme.

Thank You For The Music

Thank you [teacher] for your guitar and singing, for the music you have brought into my children’s lives – for the guitar strumming and mix of well-known classics like “She’ll be juggling with jelly when she comes” and the modern – how my eyes welled with tears as the year two children sang “Shine” at their leavers assembly.

I will never forget walking Bubbles to school in the run up to Christmas she she belted out “Go tell it on the mountain, that JESUS WAS HIS NAME” at ear-splitting volume, waking all the neighbours with her evangelistic singing.  Bubbles and Nibbles both love to sing and I thank you for weaving music, rhythm and song into their lives at school.

For Loving and Caring About Them

Thank you for being there when my children fell or got hurt, for calming them, for loving them, for caring about their tears and their pain and sticking on plasters.

Thank you [teacher] for the way you looked with kind concern as we discussed why she was taking her snack to the toilet in preschool and I told you about her food insecurity.  Your face was filled with sadness that a little girl could have experienced such a thing in her young life, and I could tell from your reaction that you cared about my little girl, and it meant the world to me.

Thank you [teacher] for the emotion in your voice when you let me know that Bubbles had nearly choked on her carrot and how you told me that it had kept you awake, for I knew then that there was more love in your heart than sometimes you let on.  And it made me love you more.

Thank you for correcting their mistakes with kindness and patience, so that they could find the way to rewire their brain and take on board all the new things that they were learning.  Thank you for the books to read, the messages of encouragement in their journal, the time you take every term to talk to me about my children.

Thank you [chef] for caring that Bubbles got a good meal, even when the menu said fish or curry, neither of which she likes, so you made her something special.  Thank you for giving them the power to choose, for letting them pack cucumber and peas onto their plate and ensuring they had fruit every day for a snack.

For Helping Them Grow

Thank you for praising my children with stickers and rewards and the new dojos, and for the moments when I shed tears of pride when they won prizes for being Star of the Week or for their manners or writing.

Thank you [teacher], for being astonished at Nibbles’ knowledge of ice and his fabulous Union Jack colouring – it blew me away and he came home standing taller, feeling proud, brimming with confidence.  Those times have been emotional and unforgettable, and every time I have shed tears of joy and love for my precious children.

Thank you for the nativity plays – for the joyous celebration contained therein, when I struggled to know whether to laugh or cry or both (I did both).  When Bubbles wouldn’t stop waving and was so surprised when her Daddy turned up late that she nearly forgot the one line she had to say.  How it turned my heart to marshmallow fluff.

Thank you for the baking, for my children love to bake and to eat and how it lit up Nibbles’ face when Bubbles left her class with a paperbag containing something delectable which they shared on the way home, except that one time when they put salt in instead of sugar and neither of them would eat more than a nibble.

Thank you for the adventures they have been on – the coach rides, the picnic lunches, the sports days, the trips out to farms or landscapes or even just to the local train station.  They always came back bursting with enthusiasm and things to tell me.

Thank you for your patience in teaching them maths, english, art, science and more. It is when I sit and read a book with them, guiding them through the phonics, the letter sounds and helping them to join them into a word that I realise that I am not cut out to be a teacher, and I thank God that someone else is.  That you are.  That you have made a choice to teach these young lives, to guide their first steps in learning with all the stresses upon you.  You are amazing.

For Giving Them Gifts To Last A Lifetime

Thank you for the hours you spend every day, every week, every year with my children.  For the heart, body and soul that you pour into their days, that lights up their evenings and weekends, as they become more confident, more sociable, more capable and grow into little people.  I am not sure I am ready for them to grow up this fast, but they do it despite me.

Thank you for giving Bubbles a love of reading and books.  She has become a voracious reader (she can read several Easy Reader books every evening given a chance).  Just last weekend she wrote

‘I love books because they are full of imagination’

I couldn’t ask for more.  Bubbles loves to sing and dance and run and do maths and draw and more.  She can talk about the ozone layer and what that means to our planet, Noah’s Ark and Barbara Hepworth, lifeboats and more.  You have fed her mind, body and soul for four years and there are not enough words in this blog to say thank you properly (and I am crying again).

You have fed Nibbles love of superheros and animals and making things, leaving me with a house bursting with egg box, sellotape and glitter creations, and we had to make two more tissue-box guitars so he could copy his song-singing teacher.  He is always coming home with facts about animals to surprise me

Mummy, did you know that crocodiles have rocks in their stomach?

He has thrived in his first year at school and continues to skip in (when we don’t take the imaginary unicorns and have to gallup all the way), excited to be with his teachers and friends and really looking forward to year one.

Your love and kindness, your patience and your encouragement, your welcome and your creativity have changed my children forever.  I have only homemade jam to give you, and yet you have given them everything.  I hope these words make up for the shortfall.

Thank you.

From the depth of my heart.

You have changed our lives forever.

(now crying so much I can’t see the keyboard)