The End of Kindergarten
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If we can get through Field Day tomorrow, WE DID IT! ALL OF US! We survived Kindergarten. It sounds so dramatic; but it was such a life-shift for us: a ball and chain, a LONG thief following a “foot loose and fancy free” 5 years of eternal summer.
It came too fast; and I guess (or so people keep telling me) it left pretty fast, too.
I’ve had babies so close, that they’ve all been babies at the same time (read: I have to hold on to ALL of them at the same time). When the double stroller kicked Harper to the curb (literally), I always made her hold on to the stroller handle as a safety precaution. It became a habit for both of us; two babies riding, one holding the handle right next to me.
Shortly after school started, we visited her for lunch, and as I was pushing the stroller away, she left her class line and assumed her position. It was a moment (and a metaphor) I will return to often: prying her little fingers off of her “safe space”, and making sure she could not see the sobs rising in my throat.
It’s been so difficult losing that tight grip on her; especially because I just didn’t want to let her go. It may be an oldest child thing, or it may be that she’s always been my person: an independent, little soul who confidently led us through the first phase of parenting, and continues to lead us with her unabashed way of seeing life.
It’s been incredibly difficult for me to be vulnerable enough to let her go. I worry, I wonder, I fear too many things; and yet, as I watch her grow and change and read and write, and follow the path she’s always been set to be on, it is humbling, and empowering, and beautiful.
Gretchen Rubin once commented on that fact that as parents we will “say goodbye many times”, and as she navigates all of her big and small moments in life, I want her to know that the stroller handle will always be here if she needs it; but there are far, far greater things ahead than the ones we leave behind.
Onward, baby girl!
-mom
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