Preschool Graduation

Last Thursday was my sons' end of the year preschool program/graduation ceremony. I left the house an hour early to drop off the graduates and secure a seat closest to the nearest exit. My husband, my sister Amy, and my eighty-eight-year-old friend Delsa stayed behind to wait for my contribution to the post-graduation reception (a very special homemade chocolate cake) to come out of the oven.

Five minutes before showtime, my family showed up. As my husband and Delsa took their seats, my husband leaned over to me and whispered, "Your presence is requested in the reception room."

I found my sister next to a buffet table piled high with homemade treats. She was holding a plate covered with aluminum foil.

"What do you want me to do with this?" she asked in way that suggested that my cake didn't belong with the rest of the food.

Before I could answer, she continued, "Do you want my advice?"

The tone of her voice told me that I probably did not, in fact, want to hear her pearls of wisdom, but as all good sisters do, she gave it to me anyway. "This thing," she said, refusing to acknowledge my creation by its proper given name, "needs to be put back into your car right now."

Normally, I would have vigorously defended the merits of my cooking by critiquing the other offerings on the table, but the pianist had already begun playing "Pomp and Circumstance" and I didn't want to miss the processional march. The sacrifices we make for our children.

The program itself was excellent. Cortlen stood in the back row and belted out Christian fan favorites like "This Little Light of Mine" and "Kum-bay-ah." Kellen sat in the middle row between the boy who sang too loud and the girl who flashed her underpants the whole time and wouldn't sing at all. Kellen complimented the dynamic duo by 'accidentally' falling out of his chair seven times.

At the end of the program, my offspring received public recognition for being the only two graduates to have successfully completed the same pre-K program two years in a row (I held my boys back to put a little distance between them and my daughter). At one point during the reception, Cortlen put his paper graduation cap on Cameron and I snapped a quick picture. We all thought it was cute until we realized that our eight-month-old has the same head circumference as our soon-to-be kindergartner.


"Where's your cake?" Kellen asked, licking his lips, as we approached the buffet table. A million different possible answers flashed before me, including accepting responsibility for failing to add two essential ingredients to the cake batter and neglecting to grease and flour the cake pan. In the end, however, I chose the road less taken.

"Aunt Amy ruined it," I told him.

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Any good preschool graduation stories out there?