Well, another emotional first day of school has come and gone. Ella woke up so excited this morning (and in the pitch blackness of 6 am…) and I tried to step out of my stress and frenzy to get excited with her.

I always have a hard time when the real world comes back into our lives and routines are no longer just up to me. Ella, of course, never has any trouble.

I should be used to it by now but I’m still in awe every time Ella sweetly and bravely enters a new situation. When she first went to preschool two years ago, without crying and without looking back, I had to laugh to myself that she wasn’t going to miss us at all while I was on the verge of tears. Then when she was hospitalized just 6 months later and took everything in stride while I felt like the world was ending. When we moved and she settled right in, without missing a beat. Then this morning, when we were driving to her new Pre-K and she said, “I can’t wait to play with my friends.” I would have called them strangers, a group of kids she’d never met. She called them her friends.

Sometimes I think kids have it all right and it’s the adults who can’t figure anything out. Then I remember she tries to teach her stomach tricks and she thinks that thinking with your eyes closed is the same as dreaming and that all moms do is put clothes away and drive places and I’m glad that she still needs me and I have a few things left to teach her.

xo

eb