Tomorrow is the day…
Makenzie Ruth will march into her kindergarten classroom for the last time! Can it really be an entire 10 months since Denny nervously gave Makenzie this map to ensure she wouldn’t get lost on her way to Classroom 132 on day one of kindergarten?
How to get to kindergarten Classroom 132, instructions by Daddy 🙂
September 2017 – Kindergarten Day 1!
She arrived to school, map in hand!
Halfway through Day one of kindergarten!
It’s been such a fun year and our girl has learned SO much! Makenzie had a great teacher and made a whole new group of friends. Our now five and a half year old (Kenz will not allow you to forget that half year) is reading chapter books and writing sentences. She is becoming very independent, and she spends all of her free time tumbling around the house. She continues to be an awesome big sister to Mitchell, who is also growing up right before our eyes!
Loving on big sis.
But deep down, this last day of kindergarten is triggering one of those dull heartaches of being a mom. Let me explain…
When Makenzie was a newborn baby, I read countless articles & books to try and learn all the mom secrets! I googled everything about car seats and burp cloths and sleeping patterns. I scoured the Internet for advice on tummy time and infant feeding schedules and baby body wash. But not one article mentioned the deep down level of ache I would feel the first time I cleaned out her closet and realized she no longer fit into her 3 month clothes. It hit me like a ton of bricks, and on that day I realized exactly how powerless I was to time. As much as I spent those bleary-eyed nights of Kenzie’s colicky infant weeks praying to get to a phase where I would actually sleep, I realized how sad it is to know you can’t go back.
So here we are five (and a half) years later. Makenzie’s closet has long been cleaned of 3 month and 6 month and now 5T clothes. She’s sleeping through the night on a regular basis (although she often winds up snuggling with us in our bed), and she’s long replaced tummy time with tablet time (but only in small amounts, I swear). But that dull ache of mom life still visits from time to time to remind me just how quickly time passes.
They say that having children is like letting your heart walk around outside your body. Tomorrow our oldest heart will get on the bus as a kindergartner and come home as a first grader. The dull ache will undoubtedly remind me to slow down more often and to savor the moments, but I’m also overcome with excitement about what the next year will bring. Makenzie is happy and healthy and excited to move along to 1st grade, and we are lucky enough to have a front row seat to watch it all!
So for all you mamas out there aching on the inside, grab some tissues, snap some pictures, and find some time for a few extra hugs. Then hold on tight… the summer fun is about to begin!
Summer 2018, here we come!
The McGee 2018 Summer Fun List. Here we go!
