This is not going to be one of those sappy, grab the Kleenex, posts about how incredibly shocked and sad I am that my oldest daughter just completed her very last full week of Kindergarten.  I won’t banish you to a trip down memory lane with recounts of the first time I let her off in the car line and watched her back, mostly shadowed with a Hello Kitty backpack that dwarfed her at the time, as she entered the school like a big girl.

I won’t force you to relive your first born’s major accomplishment of learning how to read her first words, telling you the first time that she has “BFF’s” or the first time you decided it was OK if her clothes did not match as she proudly spun in the kitchen excited that she dressed herself.

Or maybe I will.

I have loved this year for her.  Not so much for me because I have truly missed her as she has made friends, learned more than I ever thought possible in one year and grown from that little baby girl that walked through those doors to a little lady who baffles me daily with her sudden maturity.

How did this happen?  How did it happen so fast?  And how, in the world, did I wake up the other day thinking I had missed it all? Surely, I did not.  I was here.  I took pictures  in my mind as well as my camera.  And yet I find myself digging through my files, rummaging through images embedded for a lifetime, yearning to relive and remember every step.

Much as I did her babyhood.  And her toddler hood.  And her preschool years.

I thought by being the Homeroom Mom and on the PTO that I would not feel this way come this time.  But I do.  I missed it.  Or is it that I will miss it?

Will it always be this way?  Her growing up too fast, me not being able to keep up?  Me regretting that I did not do more, remember more, preserve more, love her more, give her better memories?

Or will there come a time – maybe after she is a college graduate, or married, or has children of her own – that  I won’t feel like it was too fast?

I suppose, if I were honest with myself, it will always be this way.  I will struggle to hang on to where she is while allowing her to grow into who she will be.  And every step of the way, I will let the tears slide down my face, the memories wash over me -wanting to remember even more – just like I did when I left her Summer Fun Day on her last Friday of Kindergarten.

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**Originally Published 5/26/2013**