The End of an Era

My daughter starting school is a milestone of not just her little life -but mine as well. I feel the youth of my motherhood slipping away.
Growing up, I planned my life in my head. It went like this: school, graduate, college, graduate, marriage, babies.
Period.
I didn’t plan beyond babies because I think I honestly didn’t believe I would age past Young Mother. I couldn’t fathom it. Now The Future is staring at my face, grimacing and growling and I’m cowering in the corner with the tattered sock monkey my great grandmother made for me when I was younger than my youngest.
No longer is my time mine. I’m entering the scheduled world that mothers of children in school lead. No longer is my daughter constantly under my eye where I know exactly where she is, what she’s saying and who she is saying it to.
She’s going… OUT there!
I’m staying here to gestate and feign a housekeeper.
Time is marching on despite my valiant efforts to hault it at every turn. I’m not one to roll with change or with punches or at all, actually. Have YOU ever tried rolling a pregnant lady? Impossible.
I’m going to miss her terribly. Yes, it’s only a few hours. Yes, I’m being dramatic.
I know, I know, I know.
But if you knew my kids like I know my kids, you’d have your panties in a wad too. I said to my daughter, “When Mommy takes you to school, I will probably cry. It’s okay though… don’t worry. Mommies always cry over nothing. I will just miss my little girl.”
“But I’ll come home on the bus,” she said, giving me the What’s Your Deal, Mom? face.
“I know,” I said, “And you will have so much fun at school.”

I wanted to make yesterday special for her. I wish I was one of those On Top Of It All moms that makes banquet dinners for their kids, complete with matching place mats and gourmet desserts. I can’t even put together a small “Back to School” bash. I can’t afford to spend any extra cash… my daughter actually EARNED most of her school clothes money HERSELF and she’s FREAKING FIVE.
Besides, my house was still recovering from camping. I’d been trying to clean it up. I’d been trying to get everything back in order.
But I’m Alicia Version .5 right now. I do half the dishes and collapse on the couch whereas I’m normally able to knock out cleaning my entire kitchen in less than an hour -dishes included.
I really didn’t want to spend our last day of summer cleaning. Then something miraculous happened, and The Miracle Maker doesn’t even realize what he did for me.
Dad took my kids for part of the morning, and I cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. By the time they got back, I was able to spend time with them. When rest time came, I popped a movie in for them.
“When brother falls asleep, you and I can paint our nails for school,” I told my daughter. Well, the second her brother fell asleep, she went to work. She pulled out her table and made a beautiful spread of decorations (candle included). She pulled out her fake food and we went to work.

She painted my nails.
“When you take me to school and you start to cry,” she said, “You can just do this”
She pinched her lips together and closed her eyes.
“And you will stop crying and then you can look at your nails and they will make you SO happy!”

Well, she’s got a point.
My boy was still sound asleep (my daughter never sleeps… nightfall rarely stops this girl), so I thought I might pull out all my hair bow/flower making stuff.
Again: I’m not one of those moms who makes adorable hair thingies. I have enough stuff on hand to get by. Sort of.

Usually when I make something for my daughter, she hates it. Normally, I choose something I would like and make it for her. THAT’S why she hates it. I guess she isn’t me (light. bulb.) and so when I was picking through my fabric scraps I tried to think of what she might like… and I came up with the flower on the bottom right.
And guess what? It’s by far her favorite! I want to do some kind of happy dance.
I’m not like a regular mom… I’m a cool mom.
My girl made the bow on the top right all by herself! We were watching a bunch of made for TV girl movies, and while we were watching she picked up my felt and just started going to it! All I did was hot glue a center on (she picked it out) and hot glue the clip on the back. I am so impressed with her!

At the end of hair bow making, Lacy was beside herself with excitement. She gathered up her favorite hair flower and took off running. A few minutes later, she came back into the living room wearing the outfit she had picked out for the first day of school.
“Can we please go outside and take lots and lots of pictures?” She asked.
Could you have said no?

Half way through the shoot, she noticed that she still had the sizing sticker on her jeans. So she peeled it off and put it to better use.
On my belly.

Once we got back inside, we cleaned up our huge mess. She changed out of her clothes and into some that weren’t brand spanking new, and then Dad came home.
After eating a dinner of ribs (that my husband had cooked himself on Sunday), I talked the kids into playing a NEW game called “Foot Rub Game” where they each rub one of Mom’s (extra swollen, yipee!) feet until they hear the whistle. Once they hear the whistle, they switch feet.
They thought it was so awesome, and I was laughing so hard over it all (first of all that they BOUGHT my CRAP and second of all because they were having so much dang fun doing it) that I couldn’t pull it together enough to actually whistle.
The harder I tried, the harder they laughed at me which made me laugh harder… and on and on we went.

After The Foot Rub Game, it was PJs time. And we all gathered ’round for Lacy to get her first ever Father’s Blessing.

The Spirit was so unbelievably strong last night as my husband gave her a blessing. Heavenly Father loves Lacy SO very, very, VERY much! She’s so small! She’s only been here 5 1/2 years! And His love for her is, wow -breathtaking. It’s so humbling to sit next to someone so small and feel just how small they aren’t to our Heavenly Father.
The blessing was beautiful… absolutely beautiful.
And I couldn’t help but peek at her through the blessing and just fall in love with her and her hugging that giant Pooh bear in her flannel nightgown. Lovable.
After the blessing, Lacy said our family prayer and she BURST into tears. Daddy comforted her, and she went off to bed where I could hear sobs coming from her top bunk. I went in her room, made my way up to her top bunk, and took her in my arms.
“Mom, you might just be too big for my bed.” She said.
I assured her that the bed was SOLID wood that it would hold Mommy just fine. I asked her what she was so scared of.
“Bullies and missing my mom,” she said, her face was red and splotchy as tears ran down her cheeks. I went on to tell her about when I went to Kindergarten (in the same room at the same school) and how there were no bullies and how wonderful everything was.
“You will learn all about numbers and letters and reading! And there will be prizes if you read a lot of books! And you will have your own special chair and get to know tons and tons of new friends… you will LOVE it! You even get to have play time and you get to learn new songs and come home and teach them to me.”
After a few minutes of me explaining what she could expect at school, she settled down.
“Do you want to have some alone time and cry some more… or do you want to hop down and watch a movie and eat candy with me?” I asked, kissing her forehead.
“I’ll come down,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. I made my way to the foot of her bed and started to climb down the side of the bunk. There’s no ladder because the way the bed is built the beds serve as a ladder.
“Mom?” She asked.
“Yes?” I said and waited for her to say something like “Thanks for talking to me” or “I love you” but no.
“I just hope my bed doesn’t fall over while you climb down,” she said, her eyes wide and wild with concern as the bed creaked.
I laughed out loud.
Hey, hey, hey! I’m Fat Mama!

One and a half hours until the Era Ends.
Unless YOU can stop time…