Where’d My Baby Go?

“Where’d your baby go?” my husband asked me today on the phone.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I sent her to school and they turned her into a big girl.”

That is SOOO true. I marvel at what a remarkable year it has been. In the beginning, she was clingy. She didn’t like school. She didn’t like one girl who was boisterous, chatty and a bit bossy.

For at least a month, maybe two, the issue of school was a dramatic battle between her not wanting to go, and my insisting that yes, she did have to attend. Wondering to myself if she really WAS ready for school. Perhaps I should consider Montessori, or the private Christian school, or home schooling.

Some kids push for independence. She craves being sheltered and overprotected. Mentally, I waffled between giving her what she felt she needed, or putting us both through the pain of pushing her out of the nest a tiny bit, for her own good. Unable to know whether it was for the best, or would end in a family drama of failed experiment.

But I think I made the right call. It’s been a bumpy road. She entered school tearfully, clingy, and barely able to write her own name. Now she brags about that she didn’t have any tokens taken away today. That she likes music and art classes, loves library time, and doesn’t like P.E.

She can read nearly whole sentences, only needing help with the big words.  Just yesterday, she completely read Green Eggs and Ham, completely by herself.
She makes careful drawings and labels them, “For my Daddy”.

She’s learning to tell time and count by 2s, 5s, and 10s.

Has lost 4 baby teeth in the past 2 months.

She surprises me with her thinking aloud. Things like, “I don’t know whether to take a bath or shower. I’m dirty, so the bath water would get dirty and I don’t want to sit in dirty bath water. A shower would be faster and use less water, so it wouldn’t be as wasteful.” 

She hounds her brother for leaving his bedroom light on and wasting electricity. She's chided me on many occasions, because we don't recycle.

She makes introductions for her and her brother, stating to other kids and sometimes grown-ups, their names and ages.

In the past month, she’s finally mastered how to tie her shoes, and she is ABSOLUTELY thrilled with herself.

What a remarkable Big Girl she has turned out to be, and I’m thrilled to be her mother! I wonder what surprises are in store for me next year...