A disappointment

At the ripe old age of 32, I know that life is filled with disappointment. Whether you have a charmed life or not, things are not always going to work out the way you'd hoped. I have come to accept this truth in my own life, but yesterday it suddenly occurred to me that now I have to accept it for another person's life, a tiny person, one so bright-eyed that I'd rather endure the most horrible disappointment imaginable than watch her deal with one ounce of it. And that, my friends, is called motherhood. Luckily, we're not talking about any life-altering disappointment here, just a little cancelled ballet class, but it was enough to bring one of us to tears (that would be me).

Ella has been talking about going to "ballerina" class for quite some time. She loves nothing more than to twirl and leap in full ballerina costume, and she has been begging us to take a dance class for at least four or five months. I waited until she turned three, then began pursuing a class that would be a good introduction- low-key, nothing too intense. I avoided places that advertised the number of awards they'd won, or the ones with glossy pictures of ten-year-olds trussed up like 1930's prostitutes. I found an inexpensive place near our house that advertised a fun, non-competitive, no recital, no polyester costume sort of dance class perfect for a wee one just starting out. About two weeks ago, I signed her up. Since that day, we've been talking about it. At least three times a day, she would ask me, "Is my ballerina class today, Mommy?" Finally, the day arrived, and I picked her up early from daycare, leotard and ballet shoes in hand, and we talked about what it meant to be in a dance class the whole way there.

Then we walked in the door, and there was no one else there, and the girl behind the counter looked surprised to see us. I tried to ignore all of these warning signs.

"We're here for the ballet class?" I said, both of our smiles plastered to our faces.

The woman did not return the smile.

"Oh gosh. I completely forgot to call you. That class was cancelled due to low enrollment."

My heart sank. Ella's head fell to my shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," the woman said. "This never happens. I just completely forgot to call."

Normally, in times like these, I would have simply said, "Oh that's okay. No big deal." I am quick to forgive peoples' mistakes. That's the number one rule of life my mother taught me. "You can't get mad at people when they do something by accident." And this has always been a relatively easy rule for me to follow, but at that moment I realized that someone disappointing me feels a lot different than someone disappointing my little girl.

I didn't say anything. I wasn't mean, but I didn't tell her it was okay, and our sullen faces revealed our feelings. Of course, if the woman had called me the day before, the class still would have been cancelled. Ella still would have been sad, but to walk in there with her leotard and shoes all ready to go was more than I could handle. 

We walked out of the building and sat on the steps so I could explain things to her.

"The ballet class was cancelled, buddy."

"What's cancelled?"

"It means that there isn't going to be a class."

"Why?"

"Not enough kids wanted to go."

"Why didn't they want to do it?"

"I don't know. Because they're really silly, but we'll find another ballet class, okay?"

"Right now?"

"No, not right now, buddy. Now we have to go home."

The look on her little face just crushed me. I couldn't hold it in. It came at the end of a very bad day I'd had, and I just couldn't control myself. I started blubbering like an idiot on the drive home.

"Mommy, why are you crying?"

"I just feel really bad that you couldn't take your class today."

"It's okay, Mommy. We'll find another class."

She held my hand as we drove home, and I realized that she was going to be fine. It was just a dance class, afterall, not a broken heart, or a cut from the volleyball team, or a rejection letter from her top-choice college. It was the first of many disappointments in her life, and I realized that I was going to have to experience all of them with her, so I'd better suck it up and show her "It's okay," even when I feel like it isn't.

And I know I won't be able to fix every disappointment in her life, but for now, it's nothing a little Swan Lake and a popsicle can't fix. Thank God for YouTube and for little girls who are a lot tougher than their mothers.

Kid-free weekend

So last weekend was Alex and Larry's wedding up in the Cape. Since the wedding plans got underway, Mike and I have been debating whether or not to take Ella with us. We considered bringing our babysitters (A.K.A my parents) along with us and making a real vacation of it, but we ultimately decided that we wanted to just be on our own for once. Both Mike and I have been away from her for several days before, but we haven't had the opportunity to do that together, so we were really looking forward to it.

The funny thing was that it was strange to both be away from her and not have any grading left to do. When we arrived on Saturday, it was raining, and we had some down time before the party started. In my normal life, I never, ever feel moments of boredom, and I don't really know how to deal with having nothing to do, so I had my first little itch of "I kind of wish Ella was here," mostly because I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself.

However, once the parties got underway, I was glad to have the freedom to enjoy myself. Our other friends who had brought their children had to play the, "Which one of us is going to go to bed now?" game, and we were glad to not play it.

At one point, one of our friends who had left her ten-month-old for the first time came up to me and said, "Do you miss Ella?" implying that she was having a really hard time without her little girl. And, I realized how much things change in just a couple of years. Before Ella was a year, it would have been nearly impossible for me to leave her. I would have worried about her nighttime routine, her napping, her eating, everything. Now, she really is just a kid, and if she stays up late, then she stays up late. If she eats cotton candy and lollipops for two days, she'll survive. I so understand how my girlfriend felt, and I'm so glad to be past that feeling.

I did slip away around ten on Friday night to call my parents and see how bedtime went. My father answered the phone and said, "We're just pulling in the driveway!" I assumed she was asleep in the car, but my father said, "Nope! She's wide awake. Want to talk to her?" I couldn't believe it. I had never spoken to her at 10 PM in the three years she's been alive. They had just arrived home from my niece's dance recital and she couldn't have been more excited about all the things she'd seen. It was shocking, and heart-wrenching, and wonderful to know she was having a great time without us. A while later, my father sent me this picture of her evening at Izzy's recital.

I saw that look on her face, and I knew that she certainly wasn't any worse for wear. When we got home, I gave her a big hug and we had the following conversation:

Me: El, did you miss me?
Ella: No.
Me: Didn't you ever think, 'Gee, I wish Mom was here?'
 Ella: No, I never think that.

And even though her reaction was super harsh, I was glad to know that she is okay without us. She is her own little person now, and she doesn't always need Mommy and Daddy around to have a good time. Though, being missed just a little bit wouldn't be so terrible.

Congratulations to Alex and Larry, and thanks so much to my parents for putting that smile on my little girl's face.

Young Grasshopper

So, this was a big week for Miss B as she graduated from the Beetle class into the Grasshopper class. She is now in "junior preschool," which, I guess, is like "junior high school," but without all the braces and awkward French kissing (hopefully). The truth is her school created this pre- preschool group this week mostly, I think, because there are several preschool age kids who are developmentally ready for preschool learning, but haven't mastered the whole potty training thing. Sad trumpet music. Ella is one of those kids. It's frustrating because I really think she belongs in the next classroom, but she's holding herself back with this whole pooping in the potty thing. So, this is like preschool prep school, I guess. They're taking the year off to figure out what they really want to do with the rest of their lives. Something like that.

Anyway, I was a little nervous about the transition from the relaxed Miss Meghan and Miss Christina to the more professional Miss Cheryl. Even on the first day, Cheryl told me that Ella had given her a hard time about taking off her playtime dress during snack. Oh, you mean the dress that she always wears, all day, every day while she's at school? The dress no one has ever told her to take off before? Yeah. This is going to be interesting.

Mike thinks it will be good, that she needs someone who is a bit stricter in her life, to reign in those wild child tendencies. I'm excited that they've starting teaching them how to hold a pencil and write their names. In the past week she's become obsessed with letters, and since Friday, she's already written "A, E, l, and p" on her own. Well, the "p" was really a backwards "a," but I think that still counts.

At this rate, the girl's going to be reading and writing before she's wearing underwear.

I now present to you, Ella writing her name for the first time:

RIP Crabby the Hermit Crab

There comes a point in every parent's life when he or she has to make that the dreaded announcement about the death of a pet. It's one of those awful moments, like coming clean about Santa, where you feel obligated to tell the truth, but you also feel like you're stealing a little bit of your child's innocence at the same time. You can choose to go the route of, "Spot went to live at a farm in upstate New York," or you can biet the bullet and tell the truth. A few days ago, Mike and I were faced with this decision for the first time.

For two years we were a decidedly pet-free house, not because we don't love pets, but for a variety of reasons. One is that we really don't need any more mouths to feed, or doctor's visits to attend, another is that we are busy and don't need something else to take care of. But the biggest reason for me is that until Ella was three months old we had the most amazing dog on the planet named Niko, and when he passed away I knew there was no way we could replace him.

Then, in the fall, Mike's dad asked if he could buy Ella some fish. We agreed and a few days later "Ronin and Phoenix" showed up at our house much to Ella's delight. A few more days passed, and when Ella realized that she wasn't allowed to touch or snuggle or throw those fish around, she lost interest. A month or so ago my parents decided to buy her a hermit crab. We figured this would be a much better source of entertainment. She could actually take "Crabby" out of his cage. She could hold him in her hands and touch his shell. The only problem was she is 2 1/2 and the idea of being "gentle" is still a work in progress. She didn't understand why crabby curled into his shell every time she picked him up, or why he really didn't want to sit in a tiny baby carriage in her dollhouse, or sleep in a tiny plastic bed with a blanket over him. Crabby became a source of arguments because she always wanted to take him out, and she always promised to be gentle, and she always wasn't. Soon, we stopped taking Crabby out when Ella was awake because he seemed to be showing signs of PTSD- a few eyeball twitches, a loose temper, the excessive drinking. Okay, maybe he didn't have PTSD, but he did have CTTD or "Current Toddler Terrorism Disorder" and frankly, Crabby was starting to get depressed.

For the past few weeks he hasn't really seemed to eat much or ever come out of his shell and there were several times that Mike and I checked to make sure he was still alive. Then, a few days ago when Mike was doing one of these routine checks, he touched Crabby's leg to get him to move and his claw just fell straight off. We knew then that Crabby was finally at peace in crab heaven, a place free of tiny human fingers and fake plastic palm trees.

When we decided to tell Ella, we were both a little nervous about her reaction. Mike even suggested we get a new crab right away instead of telling her, but I knew she could handle it. We sat her down and explained that Crabby got sick and died. She asked the usual why and how questions. She asked if Crabby was at the doctor's, or if he would be coming back, and we did our best to explain the finality of the situation, and after a minute she went back to play with a final, "Now we can get a new pet?"

Mike looked at me and saw the unnecessary tears in my eyes and chuckled a little. It seems that out of all of us, I remain the most easily traumatized. Well, after Crabby of course.

RIP Crabby. I hope Heaven is filled with really wet sponges and lots of sand.

Entertain me

During Hurricane Sandy our family was very lucky to have sustained no damage, no power outages, and no injuries. We did, however, deal with the difficulty of spending several days stuck in the house with a 2 1/2 year old who wasn't allowed to go outside. The weather started to turn on Monday morning, and my school, Ella's daycare, and Mike's office all closed in anticipation of the storm. Mike and I both had work to do so we switched on and off between Ella duty and work duty throughout the day. Ella was generally thrilled that we were all home for another day (mostly because it meant she could stay in her pajamas), but also because she had the two of us to interchangably entertain her, and entertain her we did. By 9:30 that morning she had already fingerpainted, played with Playdoh, played catch, changed into a tutu, and ridden her quad in the living room.

At some point she got into her bin of play clothes, and she kept coming into the office to show me her latest costume. She would come in wearing sunglasses, a scarf, and a hat, or her safari outfit, or her waitress outfit and announce what she was about to do. "Mommy, I'm going on a camping trip!"

I wondered how we were going to survive so many hours stuck in the house, but for the most part she surprised me with her new found ability to play by herself. This is a truly magical moment in the life of a parent, when you suddenly realize your child is not pulling at your pant leg, and in looking around realize she isn't even at arms length. You perk up your ears for a moment and hear the quiet nonsense noises of a little girl talking to herself. You quietly peer around the corner and find that there she is, nestled among her dollies, or surrounded by her kitchen supplies playing happily without you. You tiptoe away as quietly as you arrived and bask in the freedom of the next five minutes. You go to the bathroom, have a cup of coffee, watch a few minutes of the Cooking Channel, or make a phone call. You know it will end soon, but after so many years of doing everything with one arm, one eyeball, and one pant leg focused on her, you stop to enjoy this moment of not being pulled in any direction.

Of course, this doesn't last long, and before you know it you hear her yell, "Ready or not! Come and find me!" even though you never agreed to a game of hide and seek. At first, you can't find her, and for the first time you are actually impressed with her hiding abilities. After a minute you start to get a little nervous until you hear that unmistakable giggle coming from the bathroom. You look around until you see a tiny hand peeking out from the cabinet under the sink, and you are reminded once again that a 2 1/2 year old is pretty good at entertaining herself.

Apple picking, one year later

Last weekend we went apple picking again, almost exactly one year later with the same awesome neighbors and the addition of my parents. I was looking at these two pictures of us from last year and this year and I started thinking about all the changes that have happened to Ella in the past year. Obviously 0-1 marks the biggest change in terms of physically going from being a crying, gelatinous blog, to learning to walk and talk, but really, the changes that happen from one to two are nothing short of miraculous. I was looking at some blog posts from a year ago, and I realized that last year at this time she was just learning to put words together to form sentences. She was saying "yesth" instead of "yes" and calling a blanket a "nanight." Now, she uses words like "actually" and "definitely" and requires me to "tell the truth." When I pick her up from daycare and ask her about her day, she says, "I don't want to talk about it." She tells Mike that he is her boyfriend, and when she finally gets in the bathtub after fighting us about it, she says, "See, that wasn't so bad." Now she has hair that streams down her back when she's in that tub, and when I look at her little body, I can already see it slimming out. She's getting those "kid legs" that come from spending days running and jumping like a real kid, not a baby, or even a toddler. She has cuts and scrapes now that I've never even kissed, and she knows what it means to pinky promise. She knows how to remember things, and when I first told her we were going apple picking, she said, "With Arlo and Violet? Like last year? Remember, Mom?" Yeah, buddy, I do remember. I'll try to always remember all of it, but when I don't, please remind me.

Who was that kid?

Back in the days when I had a fussy baby, it was easy to look at everyone else's children and only see how perfect they were and how imperfect my baby was. Other people's children didn't scream at the grocery store. Other people's children liked sitting in car seats and strollers. Other people's children were actually enjoyable to be around. Mike would try to tell me that when we saw those other babies, we were only seeing a moment of their days. We didn't know what the other 24 hours and 59 minutes looked like, and though I knew this was true, it was a hard truth to accept when it seemed like everyone's baby was happier, more content, and more relaxed than mine.

Fast forward two years to when Ella and I are sitting in Quest Diagnostics for an hour and a half on a Saturday morning. The whole idea was a recipe for disaster, and yet, somehow, it worked out. Ella woke up at 4:45 for some godforsaken reason, and by 6 a.m. we were on our way out the door. She was thrilled that she actually got to see the stars and the moon and she still likes to talk about the "crescent" she saw that morning. We stopped at Ami's Crispy Bagel in Waterbury (because they are the best bagels ever, and you are crazy if you don't go there). Then, we headed over to Quest and arrived at 7:05. I was feeling pretty confident that we were going to be in and out of there....until we walked in and saw an already full waiting room. At 7:05. On Saturday morning. But, there was no turning back, so we grabbed a number (20) and squeezed our way in between a very large man, and a very smelly older woman and began reading the one book we'd brought with us.

This is the part where I am supposed to describe the disaster that was Saturday morning at Quest. Except, well, it wasn't a disaster. For an hour and a half, that girl sat or stood quietly, read The Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly, ate gold fish, got really excited when a new number was called, and was just...well...a really good girl. I never had to tell her to be quiet. She never said anything about how large the man sitting next to us was. Hell, she never even pooped. Even when we went in to actually have my blood drawn, she just stood there and watched like it was no big deal.

I kept telling her over and over again what a good girl she was, and she just kept looking at me like, "Yeah. Mom. Duh. I'm a good girl."

At one point, I realized there was a young woman watching us, and I wondered if she was thinking, "Man, I could never take my child here. I can't believe how good that little girl is." I almost wanted to go up to her and say, "She's never like this." But, the truth is, sometimes, however few and far between those sometimes are, she is like that, and she still has the power to surprise me. Thanks Beezer.

Really, really, bigger

 Recently, Ella has joined the ranks of all the other toddlers, preschoolers, and older kids who cannot wait to "get bigger." Whenever I haven't seen her for a while- when she is at school or has been sleeping- she will look at me and stand as tall as she possibly can and say, "You want to see how really, really bigger I got?"

What's funny to me is what getting bigger means to her. The first part is that she will literally be bigger and this will allow her to reach things that are higher (that I, of course, don't want her to reach), and do things that are difficult, like reach the pedals on her bike, or throw a ball as high as Daddy. The more interesting part of this is that she understands that getting bigger also means becoming more grown-up, a status that affords you more privileges. So what kinds of privileges is she interested in? She desperately wants to use grown-up scissors instead of her frustratingly dull ones. She also wants to go to a "big kid" school like Izzy and Arlo and Robby and Joey. She wants to swing by herself and swim without floaties. While I was driving the other day she told me, "When I get too big for my car seat, then I can drive."

To her, being bigger means freedom and broader horizons and new possibilities and I can't deny that being bigger does offer all these things. Ever since she was born, she has always been ready for the next thing: crawling, walking, talking. What's next? What's over there? What are those kids doing? Her fearless desire to know, and see, and do is what I admire most about my big/little girl and I never want to take that away from her, but there are times we all wish children could appreciate the beauty of being little, the freedom that comes from having no responsibilities in the world beyond playing, eating, snuggling, and sleeping. If only I could switch places with Ella B for one day so she could be really, really bigger and I could be really, really smaller and we could both appreciate the benefits of each existence. For now, I guess we'll just have to live our own lives, enjoying our own freedoms, while longing for those of the other.

Grapes of Wrath

Today's post seems appropriate given that lately I've been thinking and blogging a lot about who Ella is and who she will become. I wonder if in ten years we will be shocked by how different she is, or if that same opinionated, fearless, energetic spark will still be going as strong as ever. I wonder, how much of her is just toddler and how much is really, truly Ella B?

I thought about this a lot last week when Christina and I took Ella and Loreli to the library for toddler hour. Because Loreli is only one and Ella is two, playing together can be a bit challenging. The girls were playing in a little kitchen area and Ella was filling up a grocery cart with all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Loreli kept grabbing things out of the cart and Ella was getting annoyed, and said, "No, I'm playing with this Loreli, thank you," with a full attitude. Although she was definitely pretty snotty about it, I was still proud of her for at least trying to handle her frustration politely. At one point, she decided to take all the toys she wanted to play with and carry them into a little pretend train station where she could be free of little baby hands and anything else that might disrupt her play. It's funny to see her interact with kids younger than her because I rarely get to see her as a "big kid" and, in general, she gets the idea that she is bigger and needs to be patient and understanding, no easy task for a toddler. She has also mastered the art of "you are annoying me so I am going to go somewhere else with this stuff," which is also a pretty solid life strategy.  Learning to "play nice" with others is not easy, and while she isn't perfect, she's figuring it out fairly well.

Cut to about ten minutes later when I've convinced her to stop hoarding the toys in the train station and we are all back in the kitchen area. A few "older" girls (maybe five years old) decide they are going to set up a little market to sell all the food to each other. They start grabbing everything from the shelves and placing it at their fruit stand to sell. Ella simply watches them as they empty the shelves, leaving nothing for her and Loreli to play with. The only thing left was the carrot Ella was  absentmindedly chewing on and which one of the girls promptly snatched out of her hand saying, "These are for pretend. You don't eat these." With that, the girl walked off to her now fully stocked farmer's market, leaving Ella empty handed and with a furrowed brow.

At that point, Christina gave me a look that said, "Hey, that girl totally just bullied Ella out of her carrot. Let's get her," but knowing my daughter, I wanted to see what she would do. For a minute, she just stood there and surveyed the situation, presumably sizing these girls up and weighing her options. She could simply accept defeat and move on to the next area, she could come whining to me about some girls who aren't playing nice, or she could stand up for herself. A moment later, she walked up to the table full of plastic fruits and veggies, grabbed a bunch of grapes, looked right at the girls and said quite confidently, "I'm taking these grapes," and walked away.

Now, was this the nicest thing she could have done? No, perhaps her tone was a little rude. Perhaps the honorable thing would have been to ask the girls if she could play with them or if they could share some of the food with her. But let's be honest, the rules on the playground are not always fair, and sometimes you have to let people know who you are and where you stand. I'm pretty sure she couldn't have cared less about that bunch of grapes. I'm fairly certain she picked them at random and didn't even really play with them after that. Somewhere in the back of her little two-year-old mind, she wanted to send a message that said, "Listen up ladies, I'm Ella B. Don't mess with me," and whether it was right or wrong, I was proud of her because one day I won't be there to step in if necessary. One day she is going to be on the real playground without me and someone is going to take her ball, or pull her braids, or push her off the swing, and while I certainly don't ever want her to get in a fight, I do want her to be confident enough to say, "I'm taking these grapes," and let everybody know that she means it.  

You look awesome

Looking at this confident, spunky little girl, it is hard to imagine that she could possibly grow up to be a self-conscious teenager. This is the girl who checks herself in the mirror and literally says, "You look awesome" to her own reflection. In so many ways her disposition is nothing like mine was at her age. She will fearlessly jump from the highest point she can find, while I had to be bribed with saltwater taffy to roll forward over the uneven bars. She'd rather spend her days running as fast as she can, while I preferred to spend my days drawing at the coffee table. In my mind, these differences will serve her well in the future. I imagine her to be a physically and emotionally strong sixteen-year-old girl. The kind of girl who would never let a boy (or anyone else for that matter) treat her with disrespect. So, basically, the opposite of sixteen-year-old me.

I hope these traits are reflections of her true personality and not just her toddler personality that will one day disappear like her round belly and baby curls. But spending my days with high schoolers is a constant reminder of how adolescence can break down even the toughest girl, and deep down I know that she is just one mean comment away from second guessing herself, and I know that some of that is actually my fault.

I discovered my culpability firsthand today during a conversation I accidentally had with my two-year-old. It went something like this:

Me: (glancing at a woman on the cover of a magazine sitting on my kitchen table)

"Those shorts could not be any uglier."

Ella: (looking down at her shorts)

 "Couldn't be uglier?"

Me: (feeling awful)

"Oh buddy, not you. The magazine."

Now, I really don't know if she even knows what the word ugly means, but that isn't the point. What matters is that this one small moment had the potential to teach her something. It says to her that it's okay to ridicule the way people look, that in fact it is very easy to do, and that how other people view how she looks is important.

Do I think I did irreparable damage to my daughter today? No. She's still walking around right now thinking she's the greatest thing ever invented, but it reminded me that I don't have a baby anymore. I have a little girl, and it's my job to set a good example about how to talk about myself and how to talk about other people.

It reminded me that I need to watch what I say so that I can help that spitfire turn into a confident woman, and maybe in the process I can learn how to see myself that way, too. Because Ella B is right, you do look awesome, and so do I.

Wordless Wednesday: 1.5 going on 15

Growing Up

On Wednesday, my kids graduated. No, not my Ella B. My other kids. The ones I am not biologically related to, but the ones I spent 50 minutes with, 5 days a week, for the past 5 months. It may not seem like enough time to get so attached to a group, but somehow this year I did. This happens sometimes, where you end up with this magical little group that just seems to click, where everyone supports and befriends everyone else despite their different social groups outside the classroom. On any given day, they might not have looked like the "it" group that every teacher desires. They were generally unmotivated, hated to write, and often didn't hand in their work. They tried their best to get me off topic everyday, and relished the moments when they succeeded. Some barely squeaked by and I cheered extra hard for them on graduation day, knowing how lucky we were to have made it there.

Yet, despite all of this, something flourished in that little room. An energy, a vibe, something cheesy like that which made us all look forward to period 6. When they talked they were honest, invested, jovial, and sometimes even serious. They supported each other and teased each other and called each other out on everything. They laughed, a lot, and they made me laugh, too, and we became a tiny family, if only for a few months.

It's raining now as I write this and they have graduated, moved on, and I'm feeling sad in a way I never have before in the seven years that I have said goodbye to my seniors, and I'm trying to figure out why. I think that part of it is that these are a special group of kids, but I think another part of it has to do with Beezer.

This is my first year of teaching as a mother and I thought it was going to be the most miserable year of my life. How would I ever juggle working and being a mom? When would I sleep? When would I grade those stacks of paper? And now it is suddenly the end of June and I realize that it wasn't so bad. I got used to not sleeping, I became a more efficient grader, and I stopped sweating all the small stuff. I realize now that these kids give me a lot of the same things Beezer does: frustration, laughter, pride, whimsy. They helped me to make it through this year more than they could possibly imagine. And so, perhaps as I watched them receive their diplomas, I felt a twinge of what's to come, of all the moments when Beezer will be a little more independent, will move a little further away from me, and a little closer to herself, and it is beautiful and exhilarating, and also, really, really hard.

I know that we have many years with Beezer before we have to think about high school graduation, but these kids reminded me that she will be grown one day and I will have to let her go. At least I get to practice it for a few more years with someone else's children before it is my little girl standing up on that platform, flying off to do bigger and better things.

To everyone who has already had to watch their babies go, give me the strength to do it gracefully.