Hello, Goodbye...

I might already have a blog titled this, or something like it... not surprising. Life is filled with somber moments like these!

I'm sitting here tonight reflecting on my children's lives... there's a tug at my heart as my woman hormones zero in on the fact that it's the LAST night that I will ever have a 5 yr old that has never been to kindergarten.... it's the LAST night that I will ever have a 13 yr old who has yet to experience high school... because in just a few short hours, we will wake to alarm clocks and the rising sun, and I will kiss my freshman as she heads out the door to catch her bus... and I will walk my kindergartner and my 3rd grader down the street and hand them off to their teachers for another year of school.

I don't have baby fever. I really don't. But I do miss the days of footie pajamas and sippy cups, and the pat of a diapered butt in the middle of the night. I miss sticky cheerio fingers and ketchupped hair and the lyrics to Little Einsteins and The Wiggles are slowly being replaced with more modern ones like Roar, and Fight Song. Makeup and nail polish have replaced hairbows and bathtub crayons.

My eyes will linger a little longer on the refrigerator art... the squiggled stick figures and the handprint art that came from daycare last year... I'll smile each time I pass the preschool graduation pictures on the bookshelf... and I will still come home from work late at night and turn on the hall light and kiss each of them and smell their skin, and pet their sweet heads and whisper how much I love them into their sleeping ears, hoping they will hear me in their dreams.

Here's to a new year... new firsts, first lasts, last firsts... excitement and heartbreak... My heart goes out to the mommas out there! This is just one of the rough ones for me! (3 more to go until I'm crying about college tuition.) haha!