Last night I took the kids to my mom’s for dinner while the fiancé was working late. I ate the most amazing meal that my brother cooked (because he is spectacular with spices and ingredients and making them into the most wonderful meals ever!). I ordered new tags for my SUV because mine will expire at midnight tonight. I sat on my mom’s porch and watched the kids chase the dogs around her fenced yard. I goofed off most of the evening.
Then I loaded up the kids (one screaming because she didn’t want to leave yet) and I headed home for the nightly frenzy of getting the kids bathed and in bed. There was fussing over having to take a bath. There was fussing over toys. There was fussing over medications. There was fussing for more food (because heaven forbid they actually try something new occasionally). Then there was finally silence.
I opened backpacks and took out what seemed like an entire Kindergarten year’s worth of notebooks, drawings, assignments, name tags, pencils, markers, crayons, erasers, changes of clothes that didn’t fit anymore, and a million other little pieces of the lives my children lead when I’m at work and they’re at school. I sifted through bags and binders and folders until I reached the bottom of their backpacks with my heart getting heavier and heavier as I went. This is the end of something that I thought I’d waited for forever to see, my first child (which ended up being first children) finish Kindergarten.
I packed a different change of clothes, a towel, their tennis shoes, and a couple of baggies for their wet clothing into their backpacks last night. I coated them with sunscreen and took a bunch of pictures this morning then I dropped them off at school for the last time this school year. Today they played all day. They got to play in water, have a picnic, and eat sweets. Today is the twins last day of Kindergarten. That sentence was hard to type. This lump in my throat makes it hard to swallow the truth.
They’re growing up. And I can’t slow them down. Onward, my sweet boys. Forward we go together.
