The last day.....

...of being a First Grader!

Tomorrow is the last day....

...of First Grade for my little daughter. I'm still stunned that the last day is already here as i can't believe that the time has gone by this quickly. I don't know how the days go by so fast. Emma is growing up right before my eyes and nothing i can do will stop it.

Robert has always told me that as parents, our job is to equip Emma for the future. I'm afraid that while he's been busy "equipping" her, i've been holding on, trying to stop her from growing up so fast. It's not that i don't want her to learn all of the things she needs to learn to be ready for life--i just want her to learn a little slower. These moments of her growing up won't last forever, so i'm trying to remember every step.

When Emma was about a year and a half, Robert and i took her to the park on a beautiful Saturday. She was so excited to be at the park with us! I had my camera, ready to do the Mommy-thing, and i turned my back for just a second. I heard giggling and a "Are you ready?" and i whipped around just in time to see Robert let her slide down the slide by herself. I almost had a heart attack. What in heaven's name was this man thinking? Didn't he know that the slide he put her on was the big girl slide? Damn it, she wasn't a big girl yet. After i finally calmed down, i realized that it was a good thing that Robert was so involved in her life because if it was up to me, she would be going down that little kiddie slide till she was ten years old.

This year has been a big year of growing up for Emma. We were blessed with the most wonderful teacher. I was worried that this year would be a struggle for Emma as last year, there were some moments i wondered if we needed to just hold her back to get her maturity level where it should be. I'm not sure what Emma's teacher did, but Emma loved school and she loved her teacher. She loved learning and loved earning all of her behavior tokens with the rest of her class. Oh, there was a bad day or two, but she never came home this year under four tokens (each day, the kids each started the day with six tokens). To say that i am proud of her is an understatement. Mrs Gilmer-Smith is an amazing woman and teacher and i know that Emma will remember her for the rest of her life.

Summer is up next for us....and we are ready for it!