Our last Friday...

Today is Friday. School starts Monday...and doesn't end until 2025. I just had to do the math...Amelia will graduate high school in 2025. I have many mixed emotions about this very important Monday. So much of me wants to keep her home with me until kindergarten. To sleep in, snuggle, stay in our jammies until lunch time, play...just be little. Really little. The kind of little that I take for granted every day. The kind of little that I already wish I had more photos of, more video footage of...so I will never forget what she was like when she was little.

So she goes off to school, 3 mornings a week, starting Monday...to learn, explore, socialize, create, grow and get to know herself away from home, away from me.

But today is Friday. We slept in, just the two of us. We snuggled together, laughed and talked in my bed until we got hungry for breakfast. We stayed in our jammies until lunch. We packed a picnic. Stopped at the community center to sign up for her very first ballet class. Went to the park, ate our picnic lunch under a shade tree, and then played and played. We walked by the river, just the two of us. We pretended to fish with long sticks, catching sharks and yellow fish. We wrote our names in the sand by the river bank. We explored among the old trees and sat on their low branches and imagined who lived in their hollowed out knots. We played in the cool September air until we were tired. We stopped at the shoe store on the way home to try on ballet shoes. We went home and rested on the couch while we ate a snack, and talked and played until Ford came home. We finished our day together as a family. Doing our family thing. And then we kissed her little 3 year old face goodnight and tucked her in.

Our last Friday, not to be forgotten as we head into this bittersweet Monday with excitement, a few nerves, and really big hopes...

My school girl. My big girl. We're ready.