Hello, First Grade

Last night, Husband and I went to Big Girl's Curriculum Night for First Grade. Maybe I'm a dork, but I live for these nights, these opportunities to go back to school, to glimpse the world where my girl spends her days, where, once upon a time, I spent my days.

First, we gathered in the Little Dalton gym and heard talks from administration and faculty. Next, we went to Big Girl's actual classroom where we were able to explore and mingle, to read a letter from our babe, and take in her fabulous iPad self-portrait. Big Girl's teachers gave us a wonderful overview of the year ahead, what our kids will be doing and learning and then they treated us to a slideshow of pictures of our children in their first three weeks of school.

It's hard to explain, but on nights like this I feel this interesting mixture of inspiration and nostalgia. And, oddly, there is a bit of envy too. A part of me, and maybe not so little part of me, wishes I could go back there, to that time of discovery, of curiosity, of newness. Does this make any sense at all?

I told Big Girl this, but I have a very keen memory of being in First Grade myself. I was walking down the stairs of First Program. I was in the middle of a line and I paused for a moment and had a thought. I am big now. I am in an actual grade. It was a small moment, but I remember it so well, standing there on that step, realizing that I was in the big leagues, no longer a baby.

And she is no longer a baby, my first girl. She is getting tall and strong. She is independent and creative and curious and goofy. She is in love with the snails in science and the ice cream truck that waits outside her school. She loves her new friends, and her new teachers. She eats a ham sandwich on wheat for lunch each day and she is so proud of branching out from turkey.

She is so happy, my first grader. And this is what matters, isn't it? That I pick her up at the end of the day and she smiles big and hugs me and goes on and on about her day as she scarfs the ice cream I probably shouldn't let her have but do.

Anyway, I'm just a mom who is proud and overwhelmed and in awe of her little creature who is getting so big.

Pretty cliched.

Pretty wonderful, really.