I swear, and I’m not kidding, it was yesterday that I was in the hospital giving birth to my daughter, wasn’t it? I mean, I can remember it all like it just happened yesterday. There’s no way this much time could have passed without me realizing it, or at least the events of that day getting the slightest bit foggy, right? Then how is it that she starts kindergarten tomorrow? This isn’t right, it can’t be here this soon. She can’t be starting kindergarten tomorrow if she was just born yesterday, can she? Yesterday, she looked like this…
I remember checking into the hospital, not knowing what to expect. I remember them hooking me up to all the monitors so we could hear her heartbeat while she was still inside. I remember them telling me it was time, and to get ready to push. I remember holding her in my arms for the first time and being completely overwhelmed with love I didn’t know was possible. I remember looking into her eyes for the first time and feeling completely at peace with the world, knowing that I helped to create a miracle. I still swear that was yesterday.
Now tomorrow, I’m supposed to send her into a building made of brick that looks like a school, with a gymnasium that smells like a gym is supposed to smell, and a cafeteria that looks like a cafeteria is supposed to look, along with 600ish other children and a handful of teachers, none of whom I know anything about, and walk away without shedding a tear? Not a chance. There will be tears, and they won’t be hers.
I wouldn’t put it past my over-confident first born (newborn) to stroll into that building like she owns the place, without even a second look back at mom and dad. Knowing her, she probably will own the place soon. Or at least think she owns it. Her attitude gets her into (and out of) interesting situations all the time. But then, yesterday she couldn’t talk yet.
I still can’t believe that I just finished writing her name on what seems like 15,000 different back to school items, carefully putting them all in her backpack in preparation for tomorrow when it was just yesterday we were trying to decide what her name would be.
Tomorrow she starts kindergarten. Tomorrow she starts her school career. Tomorrow I will cry. Tomorrow I will smile and be proud of my daughter. Tomorrow will be the start of another chapter. But yesterday, she was my baby.
