Today Liesl graduated from PreK, which is a very silly thing to celebrate — I’m pretty sure we didn’t have so many graduations when I was a kid — but also a very big milestone. Liesl leaving behind her PreK days means Jarrod and I have entered into a new era of parenthood: that of being parents to elementary-aged kids.
I mean, we’ve technically been here for the past four years, since Ambrose entered kindergarten, but having all three in elementary school now (or, come August) just feels different. This is a marker. We don’t have little kids anymore. Gone are the long, sleepless nights of babyhood. Gone is the chaos of toddlerhood. The diapers, the bibs, cutting food into tiny pieces, nightly baths, messy faces. (I mean, there’s still mess. But it’s a different and more manageable kind of mess.) Now we have trifold projects, times tables, homework sheets, biking with friends, practicing musical instruments. We’ve got big kids. Or…maybe not big kids. But definitely not little kids.
Anyway, it’s late, and I need to go to bed. But I did want to make a special note of it. Because it is special! The real era of childhood magic that all the kids will remember has arrived. Nine years until Ambrose leaves the house. Nine years to make all the memories. Doesn’t feel like a lot when I word it like that, but in nine years, Liesl will only be in 8th grade, so. Thirteen years until we’re empty-nesters. (Good Lord, we could be grandparents a few years after that. STOP IT.) Time to kick this parenting game up a notch. Evolve and change. Take ’em all to Disney again. Right? Sure.
I’d like to mark my days by ending each post with a sort of what-I-did-today list. Like so:
Listened To: The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, Vol 1., by Beth Brower.
Wrote: Revised the rest of the bonfire scene from A Marriage of Convenience. It still needs a little more work tomorrow, but should be good to move on soon. Favorite line today: “My tum-tum needs a specialist-specialist.”
Ate: A really tasty random cucumber mixture I saw on Facebook, semi-adapted: finely-diced tofu, half a cucumber, sliced thinly; diced jalapeño; a generous squeeze of mayonnaise; some soy sauce; sriracha; garlic-chili oil; garlic powder; pepper; and MSG (lol). Shake it up and eat it. It really tastes almost sushi-like. Like, add some warm sushi rice and raw fish and you’d have a poke bowl. Might need to try that this weekend when it’s a fish day.
I didn’t do any real book-reading, album-listening, or video-watching. But in the future, this is where I’ll keep track of it.