Growing Pains

So I decided to put my six year old daughter Sara, into an acting, dancing, and music class on Saturdays from 10 am – 1pm. Ever wake up and not know where you are??? My husbands alarm went off at 7am, I knew the kids didn’t have school and for the life of me, could not understand why I was woken up! So I decided it would come to me and I would go back to sleep, it did. There was something on the show “Brothers and Sisters” where there was a scene where the family matriarch Nora was waking up one morning feeling blissful and all of a sudden reality set in….Ever have those moments where you just wake up one morning feeling like wow, I feel absolutely nothing and then wham two seconds later the stress of being, for some anyway, kicks in. It’s an unusual feeling.

So my daughter was yelling and screaming Saturday morning, saying she was stupid and didn’t want to go. After saying I know you are afraid and I am afraid too when I write, she started going thru the motions of getting ready, resisting me along the way.

So long story short we got to her class and after clinging onto me for five minutes…she tells me to leave!!!!!!! I told her I loved her and left…another thought came true…That this year my kids will be starting school as one person and coming out as another, my kids who I probably won’t even recognize when they “graduate” in June. I walked out with a great sense of accomplishment and loss. It turns out she did well and will hopefully continue until the semester ends in December.

My children are Early Intervention babies. It took years to get them to talk; walking for them was the easy part. Now I, like others are constantly telling them to sit down and keep quiet!  I have always wanted to foster their need for independence as much as I can and sometimes it can make us nuts because they want to do everything. Now I embrace the fact that eventually our family cuddles will come to an end some day and want time to stand still for a few seconds so I can still enjoy them while they are young.

We want them to grow up to be these wonderful human beings and yet we still somehow find a way to keep them young because it isn’t necessarily them, but maybe us who aren’t ready to let go.

It’s such a conflicting set of emotions “People like Us” have, don’t you think????