Last Day of School

It's the last day of school.  While I'm always excited for the kids to begin summer break, I'm also a bit melancholy on the last day of school.  It's just that things will be changing - they'll have another teacher next year and different kids in their class - and another year is over.  My children are growing up.  It really does seem to be moving faster now that they're older.  When they were younger, I was much more excited about watching them growing up.  They could do more and were becomming more independent.  Now my sons will be going into 7th and 5th grade and I'm becomming acutely aware of outside influences gaining importance and my role seeming to decrease in importance.  I need to step out of the way many times and back off and let them navigate circumstances on their own.  And I've got to say, both my husband and I have been very proud of how they have done this so far.

This year I'm especially emotional because my younger son had an awesome teacher who really helped this year to be the best he has had since he started school.  Each year has been challenging, with some much more than others.  Last year he had an excellent teacher who started to turn things around.  This year, his teacher was particularly awesome and worked with our son and us to make it his best year ever.  I'm really going to miss that and I hope the momentum continues next year.

How do you all feel about the last day of school and has it changed as your children have gotten older?