"Official" HE starts in a week.... I feel excited!

[jollydo]

My ds would, if we hadn't decided to HE, be starting school in just over a week. It feels really strange knowing that if we hadn't come to this decision (thanks in a large part to these threads on MN) we would have been (with great dread) preparing uniform, thinking about lunches, worrying about how he'd cope, not to mention desperately trying to teach him how to take himself to the loo and dress himself! I feel really excited about the year ahead, and I must admit very very relieved of the pressure to go along with something I know would be wrong for him ATM.

Has anyone else got a 4 year old who ISN'T starting school next week? Are you doing anything to mark the occasion? We're planning a family day out on the first-day-of-term to celebrate our decision (and prevent me from worrying about going against the norm...)

we're in your boat too.

you've made me go a bit tingly!! i know other kids are back or starting next week... we'll miss some of them but will be glad to get back to swimming and such.

last year we tagged along to a 'not back at school party' in a park in a town half an hour away. i'm not sure what we'll get up to... maybe i should contact our HE friends and sort something. we've not seen much of them lately.

this 'summer' has just been so odd because it hasn't been a summer. those 'end of summer/back to school' vibes don't seem to be around... it feels like november where we are.

do you know many HE folks jollydo?

We've started to meet some locally. We've been to a couple of events and plan to go to more over the next year. Luckily there does seem to be a lot going on within a fairly short distance. I had wondered about asking if anyone wanted to meet up in those first couple of weeks for a 'not back at school' type thing....
For now, my ds can still go to a pre-school gym session & music group (until he's at least 5). He also does an after-school-time football club for 2-6 year olds and we can meet up with other slightly younger children who aren't starting school yet. So far that seems to have been enough for him, but I think he might want to do more soon, especially when he's too old for the gym and music.
He has got to know a few children on our road and over the summer he has seen a lot of them, I think he will miss that when they go back/start school and when the nights are darker and they're not playing out. So then we might want to find others to socialise more with during the day. He's quite a home-bird though, a lot of the time, and not very keen on trying new things, so I'll have to resist my urge to sign up for every activity going all at once and completely bombarding him!

DS would have been going to school on September 1st...tbh I hadn't thought much about it apart from when people ask me when he goes to school...but then we decided to HE him from when he was 2-3 years old so have never made any plans for school LOL. But I guess we are having a kind of celebration as we are going to stay with my parents in London for a week in the 2nd week of September. Lots of fun enjoying the sites, museums etc without the crowds! I shall keep reminding Mum how she wouldn't get to see us if he had gone to school (she hasn't been very positive about HE so far)

i know the feeling well. i had it two years ago!
we went to the tower of london for a special outing.
have fun and take it easy, the pressure is gone, so make sure you don't put it back on yourself!

Good advice powpow