The Space-Time Paradox of Parenthood

Tomorrow is Alana's last day of first grade. I don't know how this has happened. She just started yesterday. Today she got, among other things, a perfect attendance award and the Ben's Bell award for kindness. I knew the perfect attendance award was coming, because clearly I'm the one who brushed her hair and drove her to school every single day this year. But the other one was a surprise, and as I listened to the teacher stand up and say nice things about my lady I got a little happy and sad and averted my eyes to avoid public tears. I blame my hormones.

The crazy thing about Alana being so big and grown up, and I'm not alone on this one, is that I'm fairly sure she just started kindergarten. Scratch that, she was just born yesterday. She should still be an infant. And the sad fact about that is, I can't even remember what it was like when she was a baby. That is the cruel reality of parenthood. Its fast, and its slow. You want to remember every little thing, but you will forget most of the things. I want to remember how it felt when Alana slept on my chest, but all I can clearly recall is the funny things that she writes on her homework everyday and her incessant games of "school" where she bosses Ava around and calls everyone "classmates". Screw you time.

Also, I'm angry at time for this.

My Ava graduated preschool last week. In two months she will start kindergarten. I will probably cry. Because of hormones....

I'm genuinely confused as to how she is old enough to be in kindergarten. I curse her August birthday that means she is old enough to start school by two weeks. If I had her in September instead I would get to keep her here with me for another year. Its not really fair. Next year when school starts I will have a kindergartener AND a second grader. They are old, so am I. Life is not fair.

I don't like beginnings, and I don't like endings. I'm more of a somewhere in the middle kind of person. I hate when school ends, because the year flew by. And then I hate when the next year begins, because they are closer to being grown ups and I know eventually that year will end and I will be sad again. Its weird to be sad that the school year is over, and until I had kids I never felt this way. I get attached to their teachers, because they take such good care of my kids, and then I get sad because they have to say goodbye and move on to new teachers who I will also get attached to. Its all confusing to me, I don't even get it.

The most confusing part of parenthood is how it seems to both take forever and fly by. One bad day with fighting kids and crying and too much whining can seem like an eternity, but then you wake up and a year has gone by. Yesterday I woke up with Alana, made her breakfast and a lunch, brushed her hair and sent her to her first day of first grade. Tomorrow I will send her to her last. And probably cry, because its the end. I don't even know anymore. And then when I wake up the next day, I will brush the hair of both of my girls, feed them breakfast and pack their lunches, and send them to kindergarten and second grade. Then I will cry, let's blame hormones for that one. And motherhood, because it has made me into a giant crybaby who doesn't understand the passing of time.