Dear Child,
I sat in the auditorium today for your Year End Celebration for your Junior Kindergarten year and as I watched the slideshow put together by your wonderful teachers, tears filled my eyes.
The first adorable pictures shown documented the first day of school, which were quite different than the ones taken just last week on your field trip to the splashpad. So much knowledge gained over the last year now fills those little eyes. Knowledge about breakfast club and recess and substitute teachers, knowledge about letter sounds and patterns and shapes like cylinders. Knowledge that was not there on that scary first day when you nervously rode the school bus for the first time.
As I watched you and your friends up on the screen, I felt the familiar feeling of having been here before. I remembered many years ago when I watched a similar video for your older sister and brother and then merely blinked and found myself watching another video at their Grade 8 Graduation, followed by another at their High School Graduation.
I know that 13 years from now, I’ll be sitting in these same rows, with most of the same parents, watching a lot of these same kids cross the stage with you. Your eyes again will have so much more knowledge, but that smile will always be the same.
Time is such a funny thing. Days that sometimes seem so long, but years that fly by so quickly.
I know I have a lot of years ahead of me with your childhood but it’s scary to think that one morning I will wake up and find it’s the day of your high school graduation and just like I did at your sister and brother’s graduation, I’ll be sitting in my seat, tears rolling down my face. These years are so precious and so fun and before I know it, they will be only memories.
So I’ll take more pictures and write down more stories so that when you are off to college and I’m missing you like crazy, I’ll be able to relive the best moments of my life.
So play with your friends and do your homework, go to your birthday parties and be excited for field trips. I’ll be there every step of the way, even if there is a bit of sadness to my eyes now that wasn’t there for Cassie and Colton.
I tell people that having kids so far apart in age has given me perspective more than anything else. Perspective that makes me not worry about Keenan still not sleeping through the night at almost two years old because I know the important worrying needs to be saved for the seventeen year old who has already totaled one car and still loves to drive all hours of the night. But perspective has also shown me exactly how fast time goes by.
So, I’ll appreciate every minute of your childhood a little more and I’ll let you wear the crazy clothes that I probably told Cassie not to wear. And I’ll let you invite the 20 kids you want to your birthday party because I know, it’s not really that big a deal.
When it’s all said and done, the memories we make now will be what sustains me.
So I smile and clap and tell you how amazing you are. I laugh as you run into my arms after receiving the award for “Awesome Attitude” and I think again about how lucky I am to have such an adorable, funny and smart little cutie pie. You snuggle into me and whisper “I love you” as I snuggle you back and kiss your forehead.
You perk up and scan the gym for the little boy you have a crush on and I laugh and lean over to Cassie to tell her who you are looking for. She smiles and helps you look for him and I see the same love in her eyes for you that I feel and my heart swells.
The celebration has ended and as we stand up, Colton tells me that you are the cutest little one there and I agree whole heartedly.
Of course your brother and sister would be there to help celebrate this milestone.
The fact that I am living my best life, there was never any doubt.
Love Mom
xoxo
