First Day of School

She looked so small, laden with a back pack that weighed at least as much as she did.
I brought her to her classroom, where she took a seat next to her friend, Taylor- the boy that she "broke up" with in the spring to "focus on her studies".
Were they back together? Or just mere friends? Whatever "dating" means in Grade 1 terms.
You see? There's so much I don't know about her already.
Some girls filed in and huddled around Payton, commenting on her clothes and hair and backpack.
I stood back.
She waved at me, giving me the signal to go.
Still, I stood there.
She looked so small.
Another mom stood by the door way, half in and half out, which was sort of how I was feeling.
"I feel kind of bad just leaving her here," I told her. She nodded her understanding.

Reluctantly, I left after another, more emphatic, good bye wave from Payton.
For some reason, I felt a sense of sadness come over me.
It was entirely unexpected. When I dropped her off at Kindergarten for the first time I was like "Hallelujah, she's someone Else's problem now. At least for three hours a day, most days."
Three hours a day is one thing.
A full day is another.
And it made me so sad that once, I dropped Gage off at Grade 1, in that very room. Payton was a newborn, swaddled and sleeping in her stroller. The other kids swarmed me every day, looking at the baby, little faces peering into the stroller, firing questions at me: how old was she (that one I could handle) , where did she come from (er, ask your own parents, kid) and what she ate (how to explain breast feeding to a six year old?)
And today, that baby started Grade one herself.
I wonder where the time went.

Oh well, at least I still have one (sort of) baby- as long as you don't call him a baby to his face. That might get you slapped.
But he calls waffles 'tacos', which is sort of endearing, once you get past the confusion of him demanding tacos at seven in the morning. And Kleenex is still contraband in our house, which is also sort of endearing, the way he plucks each and every one from the box with reckless abandon.
We use toilet tissue on our nose.
It works well enough.

Anyways, I did not post yesterday. I was sharpening pencils like a madman and smoothing nerves (mainly my own) and picking out clothes with Payton- which you know is an ordeal, and at the end of the day I had a headache.
And a heart ache.
Oh, well. At least we are saving on daycare fees??