The Countdown To Kindergarten Already Has Me In Tears

Field Day. Field Day, really?!? Field day is going to make me cry? Apparently so...

Wednesday was Carsyn's final field day as a preschooler at Settle Memorial Preschool. To be honest, I'd forgotten all about it until late last night. I had signed up to volunteer, so I thought I was prepared for a morning filled with potato-sack races, inflatable bowling and hotdogs. Turns out, I wasn't prepared at all for the tears I'd be fighting back in the create-a-mask room.

Who knows what sets me off these days with tears. It's always the most random moments that tug at the heartstrings, am I right? Today, that was the case. Carsyn and the rest of Mrs. Herring's class were all sitting around a few tables coloring whichever mask they picked. (Carsyn, of course, picked a princess mask, ha!) I was sitting behind her, admiring how much she's improved on this must-have skill of coloring and the music started playing. One of her music teachers started playing some songs from the Frozen soundtrack. For some reason, when Carsyn looked over her shoulder at me, in perfect unison with the music and sang in her most-adorable 4 and a half year-old voice, "Do you wanna build a snowman?", I lost my breath for a quick second. (Heck, even sitting here at my desk, typing this out, I'm trying not to cry.) For that split second, she wasn't my kid who got two, yes two spankings before church on Mother's Day.  She wasn't my 4 year-old who argued with me for 5 minutes this morning that her socks were bunched up, but, she was my daughter, who in just a few short weeks would be starting kindergarten. The memories of her first bath, first steps, first time she ever looked at me and said "wuv u Mommy", seemed to be staring me right in the face. Yep, I just about lost it at preschool field day.

Well, I'll tell you what. The first almost-five years of her beautiful life are moving a little too quickly for this Momma. Can I get an amen on that? It's really hard sometimes to remind ourselves as parents that it's ok if she doesn't always pick her shoes up and put them in the closet. It's ok if she has a major meltdown in Target because she has to look at "just one more pony, Mommy". Heck, I have grown-up meltdowns all the time.

This summer I'm going to focus on one thing... enjoying the time I have with my 4 year-old. The same 4 year-old who loves to draw and play tic-tac-toe outside with sidewalk chalk. The same 4 year-old who loves to fix my hair, even thou I'm convinced I'll have none left when she's finished. It's the summer of little things. Because, as of August, I'll have a kindergartener on my hands and I can only imagine how quickly life will go by.