My little bird is flapping her wings...

I've been wanting to write all afternoon but now that I've settled in for the night and have the laptop in my lap I simply don't know where to begin. My daughter is going through freshman orientation while I go through I guess what they call "parent" orientation. This is my first child to go "away" to school. My older son has been attending community college and living at home so hubby and I haven't had the emotion of watching one leave the nest. Don't get me wrong...it's been an adjustment since he is in school, working and rarely at home. In fact, we are still having to adjust since he is still living with us and we do expect him to take on some of the responsibilities of helping out while trying to give him the freedom he needs to figure life out. But that's a different posting that I'll get to at another time...

The reality is that this is starting to hit me and I didn't think it would. There were three distinct times today where I could have burst out crying and the last time was in the presence of my daughter and I don't know if she noticed this... It is such an exciting time in her life and I want it to be as perfect as possible without being one of those "helicopter" parents - you know, the kind that "hover"....and for the record, I've never been one of those parents. My kids will tell you this too thankfully!

After a full day of information overload we finally got to meet with the music department people and hear what classes my daughter would take toward her major of music education. It was a small group and later Anna would tell me that she loved that it was small and that she would get to know everyone better this way. She is realizing that she will get to concentrate on a LOT of music courses and sprinkle in math, english and some other basics. It's sinking in that she is working toward what she wants to do with her life.

While she was talking to one of the professors that she will no doubt have as a teacher this fall, she carried on a great exchange with him and I watched trying not to tear up. Later I told her that I was biting my tongue because I'm so used to adding comments or bringing up things about my kids that they forget to mention...and it needed to be all her because in a few short months...it will be all her...on her own.

In my mind at the moment...I'm seeing her getting on the school bus when she was just barely 5 years old and heading off to kindergarten and I'm finally crying... She was "just" 5 years old and she was so ready to go to school. She got on that school bus and I even have a picture of her little legs climbing on board the bus and she didn't look back. That child did NOT look back with her little backpack that morning. It was several years before I realized just how young she had been when she started kindergarten.

I never went through any of the separation anxiety that I heard other mothers went through (or that I'd read about in the magazines) when their children went off to school for the first time. Maybe this is payback for thinking it was so ridiculous to be so upset or emotional about the transition to kindergarten. I just didn't get it. Maybe that was because my kids had always been in daycare and so this was just the norm in our family. We were always very fortunate that we had great daycare and after school care up until the time all three of my kids were in middle school.

This transition is different though...at least that's what I'm telling myself. My daughter is a young woman now and that's what I saw today. I've seen glimpses of it over the past year but today...I don't know, it was just more pronounced and exciting and even heartbreaking (to me). Maybe the moms that were so torn about their little ones going off to kindergarten would be chuckling at me now because they've already been through this and are veterans to this feeling. Then again, maybe this feeling knows no age or boundaries.

One thing is for certain...our little bird is ready to leave the nest. I'm certain of it and I know she will be fine and I'm so glad I'm here right now with her to share this experience...