Tomorrow is the first day of school.
Doesn't seem like that big of a deal does it?
It's certainly not the first day of school I've witnessed as a mother and it is most definitely not the last.
But this year is a little different.
This year Triniti goes.
It is the end of an era for me, the end of Baby & Toddler Land.
I am leaving diapers behind forever and embracing the next step.
And although it might sound crazy, that is how I feel right now. I feel like I am standing on the deck of a huge ship and it is slowly pulling away from the dock.
I'm going to stand here and wave for a few minutes before I turn around and look at the approaching new place.
I spent so much time trying to rush the end of this time.
Trying to get my girls to be at an age where I wasn't frazzled all the time and I could do things like sit on the beach and supervise instead of running after them as they tried to eat sand and jellyfish and drown themselves in two feet of water.
I wanted to tell them they couldn't do something and have them understand why instead of just being angry that I had refused them their happiness for a few minutes.
But mostly, I craved a time where me and the girls were friends and could hang out.
This time came a few years ago for Amanda and Emilee and with it I learned where the lines are in friendship and motherhood. But I am happy with it. I have a good relationship with my girls and they are for the most part, not heathens.
But Triniti was an unexpected little thing :) And when she was born, I started over. I went back to breastfeeding in the middle of the night and changing diapers and teaching her to walk. It was a complete regression from the journey I had made with her sisters. I didn't resent the decision I made when I chose to have her and I have treasured her and the lucky star that sent her to me but I did have to let go of that little shred of calm that had come with her sisters.
And since I've let go of it, I've been trying to pull it back.
I wanted so badly for Trin to get just a little bit bigger so that she could be included in all of the stuff her sisters were doing.
I wanted her to hang with us and go to the movies or shopping and actually have fun.
And now, she is on the cusp of that.
She is starting school tomorrow.
All of that pushing I did to get her here is over.
And I am a little sad to see it go.
I don't think I missed anything, I've always tried to squeeze everything out of their childhoods and stash away all of the memories I can, but now it's going to be gone.
Learning to walk and talk and go potty, it's all over with.
Tomorrow she will seal that part of my motherhood closed forever and take her first step into the next stage.
She will become a kid.
She'll start to take the journey towards social relationships and make her first best friend and she will let go of her first little piece of me.
It didn't kill me so much when Amanda and Emilee started to let little pieces of me go because I knew it was coming and because I still had Trin. I was still Trin's EVERYTHING. But now, she will join them on The Road To Finding Themselves and I start to take the role of Observer.
Nothing in this world is more precious to me than being their mom.
Nothing.
And I know this is just another step and all of these steps make my heart ache a little but they are still happy things.
It's time for me to walk to the other end of the boat and watch for the place where my girls start turning into teenagers as the place where they were babies fades, forever, into the past.