I got pregnant at the age of 22 and have been a mother since the age of 23. Parenting and pregnancies filled up my twenty-something years in the blink of an eye. But now I seem to be entering into an entirely new stage of parenting. Tonight I made brownies for tomorrow's PTO School Carnival. I sign permission slips and go to parent-teacher conferences. I answer questions about Justin Beiber and let the girls watch TV shows on my iPod. Allie keeps me firmly rooted in the land of diapers and sippy cups, but the relentless tug of her sisters reminds me how soon that all will be left behind.
There is some trepidation as we move into this strange new parenting land. Kindergarten was such an easy transition, but these steps into first grade and beyond are much more challenging. I know how to parent babies and toddlers. I have plenty of years of experience in that. I can potty-train and sing nursery rhymes. I can recite Goodnight Moon without looking at the pages and snap a onesie in the dark without my contacts in. But this world of peers, lunch money, achievement tests and rubrics has me uneasy and unsure.
I try to remind myself that the way I learned how to be a mother of babies and toddlers was to fly by the seat of my pants and figure it out as we went along. The great Lewis and Clark were kind of like that I think. They were skilled explorers, but not skilled in what the western territories laid out before them. I think I will follow their lead, get in my canoe and paddle for my life. I can only hope to keep my expedition members safe from dysentary and grizzlies along the way. And who knows what is out there before us. It's hard to say really and I'm sure we'll make some wrong turns along the way, but oh what a story we will have when we come to the other side!
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