A New Era Begins

Yesterday was the beginning of a new era for our family. One that will probably include boys, heartbreak, (more) giggling girlfriends, many more activities and - hopefully - a whole lot of fun for my girl.

You see, it was her first day of 7th grade. Yep, that means I'm officially the mother of a middle schooler. I honestly expected to be more broken up about this milestone than I truly am. It's due, at least in part, to the fact that she was born when I was pretty young so I'm not dealing with any "milestones" of my own right now, if you hear what I'm saying... :-)

But it's also mostly due to something else. Several of my friends have children who have or are currently battling cancer. One of them recently said that she knew many parents would be upset about the new school year because it meant their babies were growing up. But, she said, that's really sort of ridiculous when there are so many parents who have lost their children or are just praying they make it to their first day of school.

So, yeah, that pretty much wrecked me. And I vowed not to be sad about this...thus far I'm succeeding.

Here's the girl before she left yesterday morning....

When I sent this to my precious husband, he replied with the following:

"You let her out of the house like that?!?! What in the heck is wrong with you? Are you trying to get me thrown in prison?!?!"

Turns out I'm really not adept at photographing in our new home and using the camera on my phone coupled with weird shadows makes her look like she's wearing a lot of eye makeup. Let me assure you that was not the case...though it may not look so in the pic.

Honestly, I was thinking to myself that she had grown up so much over last summer that she really didn't look that much different than a year ago. Well, once I pulled up the first day of 6th grade pic...

...I realized the extreme error of my ways.

I mean - seriously - who is this child and when did she begin looking 25?!?!

But I'm still not sad. For a variety of reasons. And I'm so incredibly proud of her than I can't even put it into words.

Today and tomorrow she has volleyball tryouts and I'm praying she does her best. When she's at the top of her game, she's actually very good but I don't know what the summer did to set her back even though she did attend two different camps.

Hoping, praying and pleading for the best for her. Whatever that may be.

And also sort of wishing I was still here when none of this had yet occurred. :-)