So The Monkey graduated from Preschool last week...
My heart, it's breaking.
How is The Monkey even old enough to wear that tiny little motor board and stole?
It shouldn't come as any sort of shock, I'm sure. She's been haunting the hallways and kitchen doorsteps of the apartment for the past four months reciting her Valedictorian Speech and humming verses of her graduation class song until the four of us could have done them in our sleep.
I can still remember the day I brought The Monkey home.
I was terrified, even in my already sleep-deprived haze. Here was this brand new little person, so similar to the others, and yet so different... And I had no idea how to raise her alongside the other two and keep my sanity alone. Not much has changed, truth be told, in the past five years other than I'm certain that my sanity has, at times, completely fled the building.
But in the past five years The Monkey has proven time and again that her indomitable little spirit would not be ignored. She is feisty, that one, and demands her due. She doesn't back down from a challenge, and she doesn't let others push her around. She has her own way of doing things and a creativity that leaves me in awe some days. I cannot wait to see the adult that this little creature I baked will turn into.
And now she'll be off to Kindergarten in just a few months.
I still have trouble reconciling the girl I saw climb the step ladder to reach the podium and give her speech in a loud, clear voice; with the little bit she once was. When I look at The Munchkins sometimes I see their younger selves transposed on top. The three-year-old Isabelle tumbling down the brick steps of our front porch, the two-year-old Baz with a streak of dirt across his face like a lightning bolt, and I wonder where the years have disappeared to. It's just not going to get any easier, is it? I'm going have to accept that these little creatures, little pieces of my heart walking around outside of my body, are going to continue to grow and move further and further away from the arm's length I want to keep them at.
If I'm this much of a mess at Preschool graduation, I don't know how I'll survive high school and college...
Congratulations to my big, grown-up Valedictorian, girl.
What a little Monkey...
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