School will always be there.

A lot of friends have asked what we did about preschool.

Didn't mean to leave ya'll hanging there.

Ultimately, J and I decided to enroll her. Let her go. It is her decision after all.

Her gymnastics studio is literally right next door to the preschool, so I intended to just drop by that Monday after her class.

Well, we walked out of her class, I pointed to the preschool with the kids outdoor playing and said, "Let's walk over there so we can enroll you for next year."

She looked at me, her eyes big and wide and said, "No way. I'm not going there."

I'm sure I looked quizzical, because all she's done is go on and on about school for months and after we had toured this particular school she'd talked about how much she loved it and wanted to go.

"You don't?" I finally asked.

I didn't want to influence her one way or another with this decision, but I also needed to understand this 180 stance.

"No. I would miss you too much. And B."

"It'd only be for a few hours. I'm sure you'd miss us at first, but then you'd probably have a lot of fun," I told her.

She shook her head.

"I can just do pretend school with you when I want to. I don't want to go to school every day."

I nodded. I could respect that.

"I thought you liked it."

"I do like it," she agreed. "But I don't want to go."

"Fair enough."

I think I asked her about 1237298 times if she was certain, because once I told them no she'd lose her spot. She assured me she was indeed certain.

So I called J and told him what was up. He played it totally neutral, but I know that secretly he was elated.

And since that day, H hasn't mentioned school once. Which is crazy. She went from talking about school non-stop to talking about it not at all. Which is A-Okay by me.

Funny thing, after it was all said and done and J and I were talking about it one evening, we both agreed Montessori preschool would probably greatly benefit B actually. I mean, H will thrive and do awesome anywhere, but the calm and quiet atmosphere would likely be really good for B.

So we kept H's name on the list in case she later changes her mind. And B is on it as well. And who knows, maybe next year will be their year. Or maybe not.

Either way, it's okay.

We said we would do this child-lead, and though some days I question our sanity on this choice - it's exhausting to be a control freak who willfully relinquishes said control! - I know it's the right choice for our family.

And besides, H is getting more involved with dance. She's trying out a more intense and older-age class tomorrow that she is very excited about. She's requested to attend gymnastics more than once a week. Once our travel schedule settles down she wants to do swim lessons again. She does piano, and is picking up on it far quicker than her teacher had imagined. She's a busy girl right now.

School will always be there.

This exciting, busy, fun, free childhood will not.