Dear Bently,

I have been writiting you these letters for a long time. I haven't always been great about keeping up on them, but I've always tried. It's so strange, starting this letter like any other. Because today is your very first day of kindergarten! I can't even believe it's here. It's funny, when you entered preschool at 3, I remember thinking kindergarten was forever away! Even last year I still felt like you were never going to go to kindergarten! But suddenly the day is here! Time is so funny! I seriously feel like you were my baby just yesterday! How can you be in Kindergarten?

You did pretty good. I could tell you were nervous this morning. You kept asking questions about school. You also have this face you do when you are trying not to cry. That face kept cropping up and I hated it! I was banking on you being so excited I wouldn't feel sad!

You had that face on when I left you at your desk. I hope you are okay. I can't believe you will be gone for the next three hours! I miss you!

I love you so much Bently! I love watching you reach these milestones and hate it all at the same time! I may have cried pretty much the whole way home and again while writing you this letter! :( I hope you have a fantastic first day of school and I can't wait to pick you up and hear all about it!

Love,
Mom

P.s. Last night Dad cried with me as we cuddled you while you slept. He told me he was just going to take you to work with him today and keep you instead of letting you go to kindergarten. Part of me was hopeful he would! ;)

Dear Bently,

We are one week from kindergarten! AHHH!!! You are so ready... I am not! I cry about it almost every day. I often get misty just watching you! I worry a lot! I know you'll be fine and love it! I just can't help but worry! I also worry about poor Olivia! She is going to miss you so much!

Today we went to your school and you did kindergarten testing! You did really really good over all! You missed a couple easy ones! I'm sure you were just nervous! So here is what I wrote down!

You could recognize all the number 1-20 except you missed 19.
You knew all your shapes and colors.
You counted from 1-100. That surprised me. When I asked you to count for me a few days ago you didn't make it past 50! ;)
You recognized and named all the capital letters except you missed V.
You recognized and named all the lowercase letters except j and k. (You got the lowercase v which confused me why you missed uppercase. I meant they look the same!)
You knew the sounds all the letters made but you missed Q.

I love you handsome boy! You are so smart! You are going to rock Kindergarten!

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently,

Tonight we had smashed potatoes. That's right, you call them smashed potatoes instead of mashed potatoes. I never correct you. If you call them smashed potatoes forever, I'm okay with that! You also say a pin-yawn-a instead of pinita. Also hilarious! I love how you say things. Speaking of tonight at dinner, you had your dad and I cracking up at your dance moves. Olivia and you will sometimes perform for us while we eat. It's as adorable as it is annoying! ;) Olivia has an Elsa microphone that plays two songs from Frozen. "Let it go" and "In Summer". Olivia always sings the let it go and you do the Olaf song. It's cute but after you've sang it for us 10 times in a row, it looses it's cuteness somewhat! ;) But like I said, boy can you dance! Also you read me 3 books today while I was cooking dinner! I hope you always love reading as much as you do now! Even after the newness of it wears off!

I love you cutie!

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently,

You have been fighting bed time like none other. I don't know why. It's not like you are sleeping at all. You just hate going to bed. You lay in bed wide awake till 9 or later. We put you in bed between 7:30-8 so it's no small amount of time you are just laying there. You  had the stomach flu a few weeks back and we let you lay on the couch and watch tv in the middle of the night. Well last night you kept telling me you were sick and you needed to watch a show on the couch. I knew you weren't sick. You are not one to hide you illness well. There's usually lots of tears and dramatics. So when you are simply telling me you "don't feel well" I knew you were fine. After many no's you finally started to melt down. Yelling at me down the hall. So I brought you a bucket and told you if you threw up then you could come sit on the couch. I was secretly praying you wouldn't throw up, because then I would feel really guilty about not believing you! ;) I walked away and a couple minutes later you screamed you threw up. Not hearing any gagging what so ever we (your dad and I) assumed it was a false alarm. So your dad went back and in the dark looked into the bucket. He came back and told me he thought you had dumped water from your night time drink into the bucket. Though he did mentioned it look orange for some reason. We listened to you scream for a minute longer and I decided to go look. I walked in and looked into the bucket. In the dark I noticed it looked orange too, not like water at all. I opened the blinds to let some light in and looked more closely, gingerly sniffing at it.
I said, "That's not throw up!" And you proudly exclaimed, "It's pee!" "Pee!" I exclaimed as you nodded your head. It wasn't funny. It was awful. You lied and peed in a bucket. But I couldn't stop laughing! I tried to hide it from you but I couldn't stop! Kid, you are one sneaky boy! I don't know how you came up with the idea but it was a pretty intuitive one.

I love you my smart disgusting boy! :)

Love,
Mom

Dear Bently,

I  keep meaning to write you about some very important parts of your life!

#1 You started soccer. I was really worried that you wouldn't like it, or even care where the ball was. But to my amazement you LOVE it! You always ask when soccer days are! Your first game you were pretty clueless. You still tried and ran after that ball with all you might, but you didn't really know what to do with it. We practiced with you and the next game you scored 4 goals! I was so dang impressed! I was like, man we have a soccer start! I guess I should mention one of those goals went in for the other team. But you didn't know and were still so dang proud of yourself! You told everyone you met the next day how you scored 4 goals in soccer! Unfortunately you next game you tanked, bad. You were in your own little world. I can't wait for your game tomorrow to see what you end up doing!

#2 On Saturday May 7th you had your very first play! You were amazing! You were wolfie #1 and you loved your part. You told everyone every where we went that you were wolfie #1. It was pretty stinking adorable! I was worried you would be nervous the day of, but you weren't at all! You said your part nice and loud and it was pretty much the cutest thing I've ever seen!

#3 A couple days before the 7th you told Dad your tooth was loose. We both tried to wiggle it and it wasn't loose. I decided to google when kids start loosing teeth. I was surprised the average age is between 5-6. I thought you had to be older. Again, it wasn't loose, so I didn't think to much more about it! The day of your play dad took you early to go to practice and I came later. When I arrived your Dad informed me your tooth was loose! I could hardly believe it! I went straight to you and wiggled it myself! Boy was it loose! I was shocked! You wanted it to come out so badly so the tooth fairy would come! You kept complaining about it and wiggling it non stop. Finally you told us it hurt to eat dinner. Dad asked if you wanted him to pull it out, you said yes. Dad tried with his hands and only managed to make it bleed. I'm not sure if it was the bleeding, or because it really hurt, but you started to cry. A while later I found you in the bathroom wiggling it in front of the mirror trying to get it out. I asked you again if you wanted me to try and pull it and you said yes. So I got out the floss. That's how I always had my teeth yanked out. Oh and you decided to sit on the toilet and go potty at this time. It was actually perfect because it made you hold still! I put the floss around your tooth and tried to get you to pull it. That didn't work at all. I put it on again and tugged a little. I was so scared I was going to hurt you. It didn't come out, and you weren't hurt. So I decided to pull a lot harder. It happened so fast I didn't even realize your tooth came out till I didn't see it in your mouth! I pulled your tooth out! I felt so awesome! ;) You were pretty happy to! We decided to wait to put it under your pillow till Sunday night so Dad could be there the morning after the tooth fairy came. The tooth fairy left you a dollar and an electric Mario tooth brush! You loved it! :)

It's so crazy I have a child old enough to be loosing teeth! I love getting to experience all these first with you! It's fun to watch you growing up!

I love you my toothless guy!
Love,
Mom

Dear Bently,

You started something that I think is hilarious. Ever since your birthday you are always telling me all these new things you can do now because you're five. For instance, today at church you took a drink out of the big drinking fountain. You proudly told me, "Mom I can drink out of this one now because I'm 5!" It always makes me giggle. Apparently being 5 has given you more confidence because you are trying things you wouldn't before. Because you can do it now, because you're five! 

I love you my big five year old! It's still weird to think you are five! Less than 5 months till I have a kindergartner! Heaven help me! ;) 

Love,

Mom

Dear Bently,

You were really mad at me the other night. I can't even remember now why. But when I went in to kiss you good night like I always do, you were not happy. You spitefully told me, "I don't love you anymore, only Dad!" This has been something you and Olivia have started that I really, REALLY dislike. I know you're 5 and I should let it get to me, but some days it hurts. And this night for me, well it hurt. I told you I still loved you and walked out. I complained to your Dad about how sad it made me feel and we started to watch a show in the family room. It was at least 10 minutes later that your beautiful innocent little voice rang out, "I still love you mom!" I would be lying if I didn't admit to getting a little choked up. It's those little moments that make all the hard ones worth it. I hope and pray that no matter how mad I make you, no matter how unfair you think I am being, you will always "still love" me!

Love,
Mom