My first baby graduated from Grade Five today.

Which, maybe you think is not really a big deal, and I wouldn’t have a few years ago either, but, well, here we are: and I was that mom, doing the ugly-cry as we watched a tribute to the graduating class. There was video footage of them I had never seen before: as tiny kindergarten babies, then it was like fast-motion as they morphed from these soft-faced kids into the big, strong, beautiful little people we see today.

I was never that mom who shed a tear when her kids went to preschool or kindergarten. In fact, I was basically ready to send Avelyn to a boarding school when she was two, had it been an option. (I looked into it. It wasn’t.) The baby years just drained me to the core and the girls were so rough and no one slept I was just so ready for that stage to be done. And then it was. And it turns out that all the cliches are true: that the days are long, but the years are short. And that it all goes by so fast.

Wah!!!

Avelyn gave the farewell address today, and I was just in awe of the beauty, confidence and light she radiated.

I am so thankful for the amazing community she has been surrounded by at Trout Creek Elementary School. Next stop: summer holidays, then comes Middle School.

Go, Avelyn Paige! (Just not so fast. Kthxbye.)