:: firsts ::

So many "firsts" this past week :

• first hair cut
• first time registering for school (4-year old preschool)
• first time school shopping

These are all significant things. They are each a step that deepens my understanding that my baby is no longer a baby, or even a toddler (as if I couldn't tell from the outgrown shoes, long legs and thinning face).  She is a Little Girl! I have to admit that I am sad about it. But, I have to be happy about it. Have to! Every stage is just that, a new stage to experience and enjoy.  Before I know it she will be tying her own shoes (won't that be nice?), reading books (magic), and eventually we will have the same shoe size!  I realize, of course, that the shoe thing is a long way off, but I also know from raising my older daughter that this 'long way off', comes so unbelievably quickly (and how awesome it will be to have twice as many shoes)!

Over the next couple of weeks we will have a "home visit" with her teacher, attend open house, and she will go to school for the first time. She will have a teacher named Miss Amy, and she will continue to become more and more independent. And I will embrace it, be proud of her, and  never let her know I'm quietly grieving the passing of that baby stage. I only want her to see me be excited with her.

Because, after all, it is magically exciting.