Big girls don't cry

Well, she did it. Some nervousness of course - even an attempt at telling me she had a sore throat at one point - but she did it.

This morning The Girl got on the bus to go to Kindergarten.

I have to tell you, it hit me a lot harder then I thought it would. The last half hour before the bus came I was so nervous I thought I might vomit. That's one thing I'm good at though. I can get through anything with a smile on my face - then fall apart later at a more convenient time. Which happened 2.3 seconds after the bus pulled away.

The Paperweight and I just turned and looked at each other...then put our arms around each other as we both started crying. We then walked back up my driveway, arm-in-arm, to get in to our cars and head to work.

This is the girl we had to take to her first (of 3) specialists at the local Children's Hospital at the age of 10 weeks...

This is the girl who was in and out of doctors offices the majority of her life...

This is the girl who was having her first surgery a month after her second birthday...

This is the girl whom I, after being gowned and masked, carried in to her second surgery 5 months later when the 'something to make you sleepy' wore off to soon and she was terrified. I held her and sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star as they slipped the gas mask on her face...And continued to hold her for the next two days straight when there were complications from the anesthesia and she wouldn't wake up...and would quit breathing whenever they removed the oxygen mask...

This is the girl who has an allergic reaction to everything, is painfully shy, so timid and fearful that she once didn't take a bath for a week because I bought a new shower curtain, and couldn't talk until the age of 3 & after two surgeries...
who has a third already scheduled for October...
and whom we know may need a fourth by one of the other specialists...

We almost missed the bus this morning because it came about 5 minutes early. We were only half way down when we heard it. Paperweight ran ahead and waved so it would stop. I scooped up The Girl intending to run her to the bus when she promptly and sternly said "Put me down!" I did, of course, and she took my hand and we ran together to the bus. The bus driver (god bless her soul!) smiled out the door and gave a very friendly 'Hi!'. The Girl raised her head for a kiss, and I whispered a 'good bye and have fun' and up the bus steps she went.

"Put me down!" she says...

Yep, it's time for me to let her go...