Bianca is graduating next Tuesday. As much as I am happy to see the excitement in her voice telling she went on a bus to rehearse at the church and to hear her sing from the top of her lungs "I've got a feeling that tonight is gonna be a good night", I can't hide I am rather melancholic about the whole thing.
It seems like only yesterday she was my pink tiny baby and now here we are: She is five and she is going to Kindergarten!!! I could already picture this two years ago but now the day is coming for real.The day in which she will get on the big yellow bus to school, say a quick good-bye and run excited up the stairs without even looking back while leaving me in there heartbroken crying my eyes out through my sunglasses at the bus stop.
As I was telling a colleague at work, it's not about the fact that I'm getting old. With or without kids this is inevitably our fate: we will get old no matter what. It is more about the enchantment of having a baby and then a toddler around that is about to be lost. To appreciate their innocence, to see the newness of the world again through their eyes, to experience the joy of discoveries with them, to teach them and finally to hear newly learned words repeatedly and inadequately and some times funny word mixes up (Mommy - we can't put stuff in the potty because it will overfloat!). Oh and the many puzzling questions...
A couple of months ago and curiously today again she asked me: "Mom, when will we stop having days?". Completely caught off-guard, first I answered: "when we die." After thinking that was too harsh and giving actually a better thought I told her that in fact we would never stop having days. Before and after we existed days will be starting and finishing. She further asked me where she was when I was a kid. I explained to her she did not exist and talked about the my timeline: growing up, meeting her daddy, getting married, being pregnant etc. She finalized with her remark: "Maybe I was on another planet!" And we left as that.
These innocent remarks, a non-ordinary way of looking at things, these will cease to exist with time. It will be replaced by smart remarks (sometimes smarter than ours in fact!), by critical thinking some times to our detriment as parents.
Oh how do I wish we would actually stop having days so that I could forever have my Miss B as innocent, curious, funny, little and sweet as she is today!
