This is a long one, but it’s on my heart and mind tonight, so just bear with me. As mamas, we’re constantly worrying about our kids. I’ve always been a bit of a control freak, and God has had to give me MANY lessons in letting go. My biggest lesson by far has been my kid – there are so many things out of my control like my daughter’s own personality, sickness, how other people see my parenting choices… the list goes on and on. But nothing even came close to preparing me for the level of letting go I’ve had to do when our daughter started school. She’s never been away from me, really. She only ever stays with my mom when my husband and I go somewhere, and he and I have never stayed away from her for more than a night. She has always been with us. She goes to her little Sunday School class for like an hour on Sunday mornings, but she’s with people we’ve known for years. Our little family unit is all she’s ever known. Now, all the sudden, she spends more waking hours with her teachers than she does with us and it’s really thrown us all for a loop.

Also, I am really struggling with the fact that because I’m not right there next to her all day, there are so many things that go on that I don’t know about. For the first time, our daughter is out in the world on her own making choices on her own. I get that kids have to grow up, but also, she’s FIVE. She’s going to choose chocolate milk over anything else every single time. And speaking of food and drink, that’s another thing I’m having a lot of trouble with. They offer these kids so many processed, sugary things that my girl is not used to eating. She had OREOS for a “snack” the first three days of school. They get candy for memorizing their lunch number and doing well on their assessments. She’s never been allowed to have that many sweets in one day, and now it’s a daily occurrence. I get that it’s a public school and the food budget is probably tight, but sometimes the food choices are insane to me. For one meal, Doritos were listed as the “grain” in the meal for that day. I also understand that our family is not the norm – we try to offer healthier options, and definitely don’t keep a lot of prepackaged foods on hand. I get that a lot of kids don’t eat this way at home and they have to balance healthy meals that meet state requirements with meals that the kids will actually eat. I really do get it, and I also know that I could send her lunch, but I’m trying to let her try every meal offered at least once to see what she likes. Our school district offers free lunch for all kids, and I know the program has to be utilized for them to keep it. There are so many factors that I completely understand, but at the same time, so many things are going into her body that she’s not used to consuming regularly. I have sent in a couple of healthier snack options for the class, but I have no control over what the other parents send.

Right before school started, our girl ended up with an ear infection. She’s had a bunch in the last year or so. She finished her antibiotics on the first day of school, came down with a cold that first weekend, and when I took her back to the doctor, her ear was still infected from before. So, she just finished another round of antibiotics this past week, all while having a runny nose. Today, she has developed a cough with her runny nose and I’m terrified that she has another ear infection or at least a sinus infection. Poor baby, I don’t want to make her put more medicine in her little body. The last doctor visit resulted in a referral to the ENT, so we’re waiting for a call to schedule her an appointment. Hopefully tubes will help her feel so much better, because she’s literally been sick for like a month. The ear infections are affecting her hearing, and I’m terrified it’s done permanent damage.

Anyway, all these things are background information (and worries) that are fueling my anxiety tonight. Since school started, our sweet girl has been absolutely WIRED. People keep asking me if she’s exhausted and I see other parents posting pictures of their kids asleep in the car, not able to even make it home before passing out. Our kid has been HYPER, almost manic – climbing things (she never was a climber), talking super fast and loud, and having a hard time sleeping. She’s up multiple times a night, and yells for me every time. She also wakes up early. She’s overly emotional over the littlest things (which isn’t *that* unusual, but it’s definitely more frequent.) I’m at a loss. I know it’s probably a horrible cocktail of routine changes, newfound independence (she magically figured out in a day and a half how to unbuckle her car seat in 2.5 seconds after unsuccessfully practicing all summer), weird food in her body (we notice a difference in her behavior when she eats artifical colors, especially red 40), ALL the sugar, the antibiotics in her system, the not sleeping compounding on itself, and anxiety about all the new things. I know that it will probably get better, but some days I feel like I hardly recognize my sweet girl anymore. The first day she came home from school, I cried to my husband and told him that it felt like that I dropped off our sweet girl that morning and picked up a completely different kid in the afternoon. I hate it. She has changed so much in the last few weeks.

I don’t know where I was necessarily going with any of this, other than maybe I need someone to understand what goes on in my brain. I want to control all the things, and literally everything is out of my control right now. I’m not sure I really want advice, just maybe an “I understand where you’re coming from.”