To Mia, For Your First Day of School

Dear Mia,

Daddy and I just tucked you into bed. This is your last night going to bed completely our baby.

Tomorrow you start preschool with the big kids.

I’ve just filled out every parent consent form, checked to see that every school supply is purchased, that your backpack is ready to go. But I’m not sure what to do about the aching hole in my heart for how quickly the time has passed. I’m not ready for this!

So many times since you’ve started talking I’ve sat down with you in serious conversation and asked you to please stop growing up and stay my little girl.

“I can’t do that, Mommy!” you’ll say in a voice that chides me for being silly. “I have to sleep – and I get all growed up when I go to sleep!”

When you were a baby people would stop me in the store all the time and tell me to treasure the time with you because it would go by quickly. At that time, covered in various forms of vomit, milk and excrement most of the time, their words struck me as slightly annoying. Of course it will go by quickly, but could this particular stage go by a little faster, please? I would ask in my head.

My love for you never waivered – in fact it grew daily – but my standards for cleanliness did get lower and lower as time passed.

The first day at a real school is such a milestone! It’s the time when Daddy and I will go from being your primary caretakers to your influencers. I’m still questioning whether it’s the right choice for our family, even though I know you’re going to do great. It’s hard to let something so precious to me – you! - be entrusted into someone else for safekeeping.

This morning I held you in my lap and asked, once more, “Mia, will you stop growing up and be my baby forever? Please?”

“No,” was the simple reply. You really didn’t have any remorse at all. It was just a statement of fact.

“Well, I guess I can understand that,” I said. I snuggled my nose into your hair, little curls tickling my nostrils, my arms wrapped closely around your childish frame. You were in my lap and you still fit, except your legs, which are long and stretch far off to the edge of the other sofa cushion. “But would you please keep letting me snuggle you forever?”

“Oh yes!” you said. “I’ll always let you snuggle me, even when I’m so big I don’t fit in your lap!”

Oh, how I pray that is true.

Tomorrow you will go off to your classroom to learn – something you adore. In my head I can see your shoulders, square and tiny against the blue and white backpack you picked out especially for this year. Your hair will probably be crazy no matter what style it’s in and I do hope this is the only year you go to school with a bald patch from your recent hair-cutting escapades.

I will come home after dropping you off tomorrow, look at Maggie and be at a loss. We won’t know quite what to do with ourselves. I’m sure we’ll figure something out to fill the hours until 3 o’clock, but I suspect we’ll both feel the hole in our lives rather drastically for awhile. We’ll miss you!

What do I want you to know on the eve of this rite of passage? I’m proud of you, Mia Lyn Veale. So sincerely proud. I am honored to be your mother. Even on the days when it’s been challenging. You are going to do great. At this and every new experience you will face. I will be waiting for you at the end of the day. So eager to hear the stories of your adventures and learning and friendships and life.

My prayer for you is that you will truly be a blessing in your classroom and in your life to everyone you come in contact with. It shouldn’t be too hard – you’ve already blessed my life in more ways than I could have imagined.

I love you, bug!



JJ