Well, the kids went back to school this week. I remember when I used to be just like Kathleen O’ Reilly (Aug 19th) I’d get the last little rug rat out the door and then go open a bottle of champagne and do the happy dance around the empty, quiet living room while throwing confetti and blowing a party horn.
But this year it’s different. I guess it has to do with my oldest being a senior. I feel the era of having little ones at home slipping away. In the spring my firstborn will graduate, and by this time next year she’ll be gone to college.
My baby girl. How fast the past eighteen years have gone. It seems like only yesterday I was bringing her home from the hospital wrapped in her pretty pink blanket her Mimi crocheted, and rocking her against my shoulder in the middle of the night.
In the blink of an eye she was holding my hand as I walked her into her classroom on the first day of Kindergarten.
Maybe it’s because I had another baby 17 months after she was born, and then another 5 years after that. But I feel like I turned around and my firstborn was suddenly a moody teen. As much as I tried to soak in every moment—and I have the pictures of Disney princess and Barbie Ballerina birthday parties to prove she had one—it feels like her childhood was over practically before it began.
So, even though I still have a fifth grader, and a son whose rock band likes to practice in our garage, I feel the silence in our house this week quite keenly. On the one hand, I have two deadlines and the quiet time while they’re in school enables me to get those 5 pages a day written. But on the other, the lack of noise screams at me: “Only a few more years and they’ll all be gone.”
And I’ll be entering a new era of my life. One where I’m not the center of my kids’ worlds. Where they are adults with their own lives and I’m just an afterthought or somewhere to bring dirty laundry. Hopefully, they’ll still need my advice and want my company every once in a while. But it will be different.
So, this is my last year with my daughter. My firstborn. My baby girl.
Was I ready for school to start? No way. I guess I better soak up every minute with her while I can.