Zoom

I'm up early, even after a late night out seeing some dear friends.  I have my precious, single cup of coffee next to the bed, and I'm thinking how surreal it is that this morning I'll go to Annie's very last parent-teacher conference while she's in pre-school.  I'm, as always, dying to see what they'll say about the person she is at school (who, incidentally, I'm pretty sure is a lot calmer, more cooperative, and kinder than the person she is at home).  I'm curious about where they think she should be next year - young 5's or Kindergarten - and what my gut reaction will be about that.  On the one hand, I just can't believe that she's going to walk down the sidewalk with all the other "big kids" from our street to the elementary school next year.  On the other hand, she has been asking me all manner of amazingly curious questions these last few days and weeks:  "Why doesn't the water when I wash my hands soak into my skin, but lotion does?;" "When I'm 6, Jemma will be 4.  When I'm 10, Jemma will be 8.  When I'm 13, Jemma will be 11.  Why won't she ever be older than me?"  

Jemma, too, is suddenly some kind of a big kid.  She is loud and passionate, throwing spectacular tantrums left and right.  She wakes us up in the morning by yelling from her crib, "Hey Maaaaaaam!  Hey!  Maaaaaaaaam!" until she go in to get her, and then she covers herself up with her blanket and giggles.  She pushes and pushes at the limits we give her until she earns a time-out or a stern warning, at which point she lies face-down on the ground and covers her face with her hands for the shame and horribleness of it all.  "You TALK at me," she says, when what she means is that we told her not to do something, probably for the 24th time.  She tipped her high chair over on herself yesterday by trying to climb it - something she has been warned about approximately every single day of her walking life - and, once I made sure she was just scared and not hurt, I hoped that she might start taking some of our other warnings more seriously.  But probably she won't.  

For the last week or so, people are out everywhere at all times of day, walking dogs, running, seeing neighbors again.  We went to the park yesterday afternoon and ran into three friends whose families had the same idea.  On our way home, cars were driving with their windows down.  Our daffodils are coming up, and we check on their pointy green leaves every day.  It's such a hopeful time of year, and even though it's all zooming by so quickly, I am hopeful about this spring and summer, thinking that it's going to be a blast.