Thank you to everyone who entered our Preschool Essentials Sweepstakes. We loved reading all of your favorite preschool memories.  Music, reading, and arts and crafts, especially finger painting, were beloved activities.  Nap time and snack time were also highlights in a preschooler’s day.  Meeting new friends, some lifelong, was a cherished memory for many.  Preschool clothes – selecting that perfect outfit was a weekly / nightly activity.  Tears, from both parent and child (not always at the same time), were also a re-occurring theme among the memories.

After reading hundreds of preschool memories, here are some of our favorites and a true testament that children do say the darnedest things!

Our Favorite Preschool  Memories (as shared and in no particular order):

Me crying and my son saying to me “don’t cry you can come pick me up in a couple of hours” – Alejandra

Our son was so excited about his first day at preschool. I picked him up at 12 and asked him how he liked his first day. He told me that first they told each other their names. Then they finger painted a picture, had some milk and cookies and then went outside. He looked at me and said “mommy, I didn’t know school would be so hard, I’m ready for a nap!” – Laura

On Hannah’s first day of preschool, both mommies and preschoolers went together for an hour.  On the second day of school the preschoolers went by themselves for an hour.  I told my daughter Hannah that Mommy would be going with her on the first day but on her next day of school she would be going by herself.  Hannah’s reply was, “But I can’t drive the car by myself.”  It was so funny! – Jen

Leaving on Tuesday, her teacher said, “See you Thursday!”  She looks at me, and says… “They think I’m coming back.” And giggles. – Leslie

I remember my son coming home from kindergarten class.  He told me he was the teacher’s pet.  He had been crawling on the floor and she had asked him if he thought he was a pet. – Doris

First day of school, I was so sad.  And as the tears silently rolled down by face, my then 5 year old reached over and patted me on the shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, it’s just school.  I will be here all day and I will be waiting for you right here at the end of the day, Ok?”  – R. Cherie

My favorite memory is actually mine. Before we had snack we had to thank God for something. I would always thank God for toys. The teachers told me I had to pick something else like my family. I then thanked God the next day for my parents for buying me toys. Then they told me I had to say something else so I thanked God for money because that let my parents buy me toys. When my mom picked me up I asked her what incorrigible means. – Danielle

I went to preschool with one of my best friends.  He was always biting the other kids.  When our moms would pick us up each day I would promptly tell them, “Scott only bit 2 kids today!”  Good times! – Jill

Although few memories of my preschool days still exist, the most vivid are of days on the playground with a friendly boy who would one day become my husband.  – Lindsey

My mom tells the story of coming to get me after my first day of preschool and finding me out in the hallway in my cot.  The teachers didn’t know what to do because I wouldn’t go to sleep and kept singing “you are my sunshine” and they didn’t want me to disturb the other kids. -  Kim

That little beauty is my niece who currently lives approximately 471 miles away from me. I hate that we live so far away, and am upset that we are about to move even farther.

I can’t control where our family has placed themselves, across the nation, and even overseas already as my mother lives in Kenya. I can however, control the frequency of my attempts to make connections and form bonds.

The internet is a wonderful thing – you can send photos, videos and even e-cards to your loved ones with a click of a button.

I plan on using EVERY resource available to me as we leave soon for our relocation to Delhi, but I also plan to try and remain loyal to “real” communication.

When we recently made our dandelion paintings, we stuck one in the mail to the little darling in the photo above. How sweet it was to receive the photo via email of her looking at and touching the painting.

She’s too young to understand that Mia MADE that painting for her, and too young to appreciate that they may very well form a close relationship as they grow up – no matter how far they are separated.

These two girls – my Mia and my niece who we affectionately call “Babybug Ladybug” can indeed form a bond, even across the miles. That is, if we choose to make the effort to keep them in touch.

Whether it be sending each other post cards of their travels, or finding fun things to collect and exchange via the mail … or maybe even keeping an online blog together of their experiences (how fun would that be?) … there are all sorts of creative ways to help keep a friendship and relationship intact even when you are separated physically.

I plan to help instill a relationship between the two youngest girls in our family … and hope to see it blossom and grow as they grow up!

Moving creates stress. Moving fosters arguments and moving SURE adds an extra level of uncertainty to your relationships.

Moving can even breed bitterness and contempt as one starts the process of packing. How could something that people do every day, cause such anxiety? How could the things that are contained inside of four walls create such havoc?

It’s because we as humans – and even more so as mothers – attach our memories to things. We cling to physical objects in the hopes that maybe we can allow our little ones’ childhoods to linger a bit more. We desperately want to never forget the small moments that helped to form who our children are becoming.

What about looking at it from the opposite side of things? What about finding the positives of purging, cleaning out and making do with less. What if we all took a more creative approach to protecting memories, instead of holding on to the clutter?

When we started purging the house for our upcoming move to India, I got incredibly overwhelmed. How could I possibly take a home, that we had all lived, loved and played in for so long … and simply label everything either “ship” – “store” or “send away to Salvation Army”

We had alot of stuff. Sure, some of it was memories and some of it was necessities, but most of it … well, most of it just collected dust, interrupted our daily routine and caused more worry than any of it is really worth.

I decided to start with the kids’ bedrooms, followed by their toy room. As I spent several days sorting and creating various piles, I found that the “memory” pile was growing larger and larger. Toys that we had spent hours playing with, or artwork that the kiddos had labored over. Board games that we enjoyed together as a family, collections of matchbox cars and legos. Dressup clothes that no longer fit or were tattered and ripped.

All of those things somehow ended up in the “keep forever” pile. It wasn’t because they were worth anything monetarily. It sure wasn’t because I would ever mend the dressup clothes for continued play and most of those toys they had long outgrown and forgotten about.

That pile of things ‘to keep’ simply had memories attached to them.

In the several weeks that have gone by since I started sorting and purging, I have begun to let go of the attachment to these things, and have begun to journal my memories instead. I’ve replaced the physical ‘holding on’ mentality with a written form of keepsakes. I am choosing to do away with the stuff, and instead keep a longer lasting recollection of the emotions and moments that go along with the stuff.

By writing about those experiences (the puppet shows, the 100s of dressup escapades, the family board game nights, and arts & crafts time) and capturing what they meant to me, I am creating a much more important treasure box, so to speak, than if I chose to keep the items that were attached to those memories.

What creative ways can you keep memories alive, without keeping the stuff? How can you preserve your children’s childhood and keep it alive in your minds, without cluttering your living space?

The longer I do this Mom thing, the more I realize that no two Moms do things exactly alike. For example, many Moms record their child’s first years in a baby book. Other Moms squirrel away their baby’s clothes, socks and shoes to help them remember just how small tiny really is. Others spend their child’s first years double-fisting it with a video camera in one hand and a trusty digital camera in the other. We captured our son’s first years with a map of the United States.

Travel has always equaled memories for us so one of the first things we did when our son was born nearly two years ago was to hang a map of the US on our fridge. Each time we visit a new state with him, we color it in on the map. Visits to family and friends quickly took care of most of the Maine to Florida route. And a planned Winter trip to California will soon balance out the brightly-colored East coast. We also have plans to expand the map to reflect future international travels and the trip we took last Fall to London, Dublin and Belfast.

Although packing up our almost two-year-old toddler and heading out on the road sometimes makes us wonder about our own sanity, we wouldn’t trade the memories for anything in the world.