"If I had a blog or something, I'd write about this," Belle said, looking down at the floor.
My eyebrows shot up so far on my head, it looked like my hair had a toupee.
"Challenge accepted," I said.
It'll make your head spin if you don't stop occasionally to take a deep breath. And there were two milestone events later in the spring that made me pause and wonder where the time went: my younger daughter's graduation from preschool and my older daughter's graduation from fifth grade.
(Lest you worry about my son feeling left out: Don't worry, he's been living his best life. He wrote a note to his school crush to determine if they could "be friends"; she responded "yes" -- and drew a heart. When asked on a school assignment what the reading was about, he responded: "Earth. It's obvious," leading to a talk with his teacher. And, since January, with a straight face, he has told my 5-year-old that she's 4 years old and turning 5 in the fall, correcting her when she tells him she's 5 years old and even leading me sometimes to double-check the math in my head.)
My oldest began kindergarten sitting at a little desk in our dining room, watching her teacher on a laptop. She strode into her 5th grade graduation ceremony in the school cafetorium a smart, silly, sometimes sassy, always caring young lady. Sure, middle school girl drama might be fifth-grade-girl drama on elephant steroids, but she has a good head on her shoulders, and it's been amazing watching her start to figure out who she is and who she wants to be. Besides our in-house babysitter and activities director when her sister has friends over.
Speaking of our youngest, while I was very excited at the fifth-grade graduation, I was feeling more nostalgic at the preschool graduation. Our daughter's departure capped nine years of "us" schlepping a child 20ish minutes to preschool four times a week. And by "us," I mean "Belle," who did most of the morning drop-offs and led the Parents' Association the last three years. I'm worried she might start driving south on I-95 on the first day of kindergarten out of habit.
Talking to parents with their first kid in preschool this past year, I wanted to pat them on the head, let them know everything would be OK and then walk away chuckling to myself. I went from breathlessly awaiting photos from my oldest daughter's day in her 2's class to not opening the app for days at a time this year. There is something magical about seeing your child make friends on their own and thrive in a classroom setting for the first time. There is something more magical about not having to wipe their butts after they poop.
Which brings us back to Belle's writing challenge. With all of the school transitions pending, she wanted to update our playroom this spring by replacing a small art table with big-kid desks for each child to have their own space to work. This included buying a crayon organizer with sections for different colors, meaning we could consolidate the roughly 85,482 half-filled boxes of crayons we had into one location. (On a related note, I frequently say "crayons" as "crowns." I used to believe it was a Baltimore accent thing, but now I believe I've been mispronouncing it all along.)
As she sorted the crowns -- er, crayons -- she noted they were different sizes and worn down at varying angles. Some were missing wrappers, some were giant-sized for beginners. Some were standard, others sparkled. But they all had been used and used well.
She was filling the containers, in other words, with memories.
"If I had a blog or something, I'd write about this," Belle said, looking down at the floor with a smile on her face.
Your turn, dear.
