first day jitters...

my girl on her way to her first day of preschool! {sorry for the fuzzy photo...she was bouncing all over the place!!}

it's official. i am now "ava's mom". that is how i will be known for many, many years. i can't believe we are already here.

preschool.

ava did great. she went in, found her cubby, hung up her things, hugged {and tried to kiss} her teacher, miss vickie. looked at me with "that look" i get when she's ready for me to dissapear and sweetly said, "bye, mom"

of course, i made her give me a kiss and a hug and told her to have fun, yes i am that mom. and then i was gone and she stayed. and for 6 hours i had no idea what she was doing.

i missed my first shadow. this is going to take some getting used to.

i had a great day with hollis, although the 7 a.m. wake up call wasn't his favorite thing in the world. i am looking forward to this special time for him and i...but letting go of my little girl is proving to be quite a challenge.

i have all these fears, what if someone is mean to her, what if she gets embarassed, what if she is unkind to someone else, what if she doesn't eat her lunch....well, the truth is i know someone is going to be mean to her at some point and that she is going to have moments of embarassement. and i know i will always be here to hug her and love her and tell her to keep her chin up and keep moving forward.

i feel like that mama bird, pushing my little baby bird out to fly {even though my baby bird seems to be leaping out of the nest head first}. i feel like this is the first major step in letting go. she now has a life outside us. she will make her own friends, her own choices. she will have conversations and encounters i will never know about.

& this scares the shit out of me.

oh, the joys of being a parent!

xo,

a