My youngest turned five on Monday. I can hardly believe that our baby-est baby has already reached this age. I have known it was coming, but somehow it still shocked me when I realized the night before that this was it–our preschool phase was ending. In just one short summer, she will leap from mama’s sidekick to ecstatic kindergartner, and then I will have to re-learn my life.
Twelve years. For twelve years we have had a baby at home. And now we will send all three out there, out into the big world of learning and growing and school lessons and life lessons. And me, at home. Learning, too.
Every time a big milestone shows up in our family’s life, I remember that these days of raising kids are short. This family situation we have going–it’s temporary. And, every Christmas night, when I sit on the couch and cry because another year is over, on every night before the first day of school when I sit on the couch and cry because another year is coming, and on this past Sunday night when I sat on the couch and cried because our youngest isn’t a baby anymore, I remember something else. I remember that my one human constant, through all the change, all the growth, all the memory-making and tear-shedding is Chad Edgington.
