My Baby Started Preschool!

I'm not really a very sentimental person. Not really. I haven't saved all my kids' baby teeth. I think the "souvenirs" from their infancy could fit in a small storage tote each - a couple outfits, a special stuffed toy, the hospital paperwork, and maybe a fun bib or rattle or something. I figure most of what I want to remember, I can revisit through pictures without having to store a bunch of stuff.

I don't really mourn each phase my children pass through, and to be honest, I spent all summer looking forward to when school was starting again. Ok, so mostly this was because my kids are at that constant bickering/name-calling/tattle-telling phase and I'm going insane (please, please tell me they outgrow this? Or at least get more adept at it so my involvement isn't needed? ha!) To put it mildly, I'm just not sentimental about a lot of things.

However, it kind of hit me that my very last baby, our youngest, our only daughter... is growing up. It isn't a sudden revelation, truthfully. She's always been eager to keep up with her brothers and has been eschewing anything "baby" since before she turned two. Somehow, though, this step smacked me in the face a bit.

Not that she cares. Look at her:

This is the face of excitement, folks. This is the look of months' worth of anticipation! She just did not understand my need to cuddle her and hug her and kiss her and take a bazillion photos of her this morning. She just wanted to leave already! (Note: she did cry for about two minutes after Daddy left, not realizing somehow that he wasn't going to be staying there and playing with her the entire time.)

See that sparkle in her eyes? No? Well, she is making "camera smile" face here, hahaha. The sparkle is there, trust me, and it was even sparklier when I picked her up three hours later. She spent the entire 10 minute drive home filling my ears with all the fabulous things she got to do: play with playdough! Play with her friend from Church! Hear a story about pirates stealing beans from Grandma! Eat a snack!

So, goodbye baby and hello school girl. Mama loves you the same. No, that's not true - Mama loves you even more!

Reason #683 Why I Love 4 Year Olds.

My son cracks me up.

We "encourage" him to eat food (he is a little bird eater who will sometimes take maybe three bites of a meal all day long, yet want to snack constantly) by telling him that eating healthy will help him grow tall or grow as strong as Daddy.

So yesterday he ate all his Mac'n'Cheese (I know, big sacrifice, right?) and he gets down and runs around the table to me and points to his toes.

"Look how tall I've grown Mom!"

As though the distance from his eyes to his toes had increased significantly! LOL - Yup, those toes sure look farther away, he must have grown taller!