Not a toddler anymore

Well, I have to come to a realization. And I have to do it soon.

See, my oldest, L, who turned 4 in June, is officially no longer a toddler. When did that age range stop? Why do I have to quit referring to her as such?

Well, for one main reason, she is going to VBS on Monday. She is in the preschool class, with 40 other people her own height.

But, even beyond VBS, there's another big step. See, 2 weeks from tomorrow, my oldest baby will enter preschool. She will start off on the road away from me. She will be around other people, other ideas, other words than I have taught her. She will come home saying things I don't want her to say. She will have experiences that I won't be there to have with her. She will talk to other children, and I won't know it. I won't know what she says. Or to whom. And maybe, just maybe, she'll say something that I wish she wouldn't. Something will come out of her mouth that she has heard come out of mine. Something I wish hadn't come out of my mouth, but came tumbling out like a gumball out of a machine, of it's own free will. Something that I said will be repeated. And I won't know about it. And then, I'll go to pick up my 4 year old little girl, and have to worry if she said something she shouldn't have. Have to worry if the teacher is thinking to herself what a potty mouth I must have, because my daughter said something she shouldn't have.

Not that I have a potty mouth. Not intentionally anyway. Every now and then, something not so nice may come out, and wouldn't you know, a sponge about knee high is standing right there to witness it. Doesn't fail.

You see, I remember this tiny girl as a tiny baby. It tears me up to remember her that small. I remember the day she was born. The day I almost died giving her life. I remember when she was less than 12 hours old, and this tiny being picked her head up off my chest, in response to her daddy's voice, and I remember thinking that that was the most important thing anyone had ever done in the history of the world.

"WOW!! Did you see that? Call the nurses! Call the Doctor! Call the hospital president! Call the newspaper and the tv stations and CNN! My baby girl just picked her head up!!!! She's too tiny to do that! She can't possibly pick her head up yet, yet, here she is!! She's so strong! You know that when they pick they're heads up that young, it means they're geniuses, right? It means that they have the world by the tail, and that this baby is going to find the cure for cancer by the time she's 18. By 21 she'll be a Nobel Science Prize winner, and by 25 she'll be the President!

And it all started right here, in this room, because my first baby, my tiny one, skin of my skin, bone of my bone, with her daddy's eyes and her mommy's nose,

just picked her head up."

I remember it like it was yesterday.

And now, that was yesterday, and today, here, now,

I'm prepping to send her off to preschool.

To someone else's care. Someone else's instruction. Someone else's hands.

I'm not ready.

I'm not ready.

I'm not ready.

Yes I am.

Yes I am

Yes I am.

Yes I am.

:)

See, I am ready. I know I am. Because she is still my first born, still my baby. Still my L-Bear. But, now, she gets to take this foundation I've tried to give her for the first 4 years of her life, and she gets to take it and build on it. She gets to share with the world who she is. That she is friendly, and sweet, and loves to show how she "wiggles". That she is a ballerina and a princess and has a Dora Haircut and loves pink and purple and anything that has anything to do with dancing. She gets to show the world that she knows her ABC's. That she can count to 30.

She's my baby girl. My love. My heart.

Well, a third of my heart. I have two more that I love equally as much.

But then, that's another day.