First Day of School Blues

Me. Not them. We had a whirl wind of a day today. Chachi started Liga Latina tonight which is a predominately hispanic soccer team. Can I tell you how incredibly AWESOME this is going to be. First off, she's playing with 8 boys and 1 girl on her team. OK, there are 2 girls but one of them is her so I didn't count her. That rocks all in itself because it's going to give her so much confidence to play against the girls. Plus, she's so rough and tumble as it is, it'll be a total non issue as soon as she gets the hang of it. THEN, this is the best part... because it's mostly hispanics playing, there are some of the traditional foods there. Well, need I say more on that? Because you know I love Mexican food in unnatural ways. Then to have these things on a cart, roaming around... yes, sheer nirvana. I got my most favorite coconut popcicle from this one guy and I wanted to get corn on a stick but we had to scoot off to Chachi's other soccer practice for our local AYSO. They played a mock game with another team that practices at the same time. She was all over the place, making sweet plays. I can't wait to see how she does in season play after being taught by the Liga Latina coaches. They are amazing! But since most of the kids and coaches speak Spanish, all I want to know is where are uncles Juan and Cris when we need them? If I'm not careful, I fear I might order banana ice cream when I really just want to know what time practice is over. 

Tiny and Boops were along for the ride but they make their own fun wherever they go so it was good. And they got popcicles too so that's bonus for them. Tiny was taking weeds and making some dish and pretending she was Giada from the Food Network. It was too cute. She was talking like her and making her dish extra special with "premagan cheese". Yes, I meant to spell it that way. I spelled it like she said it so it is technically correct. Boops just ran around like a mad man, being taken in and completely fascinated with the dogs running around. Yeah, by the way, if I haven't mentioned it before, my son is totally taken with dogs. He loves them. Love in a complete and total unconditional kind of loving way.

Anyway, all this excitement tonight got us home late and we made a quick dinner so we could throw the girls in for showers and Boops in the bath to get ready for... drum roll please... the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL tomorrow! Dun dun dun... I thought I was so ready for them to go back and get back into the routine but all day today, I've had this nagging feeling that I flat out need more time. More time with them being little. Time is flying by in ways I never could have fathomed before children. It's like someone took my life, put it in a hourglass and turned it over. Before I knew it, half the sand had already poured with reckless abandon into the other side and I have no clue how to get any of it back into the top, where I want it to be. Where I want it to stay. 

It's kind of cliche I know, but Days of Our Lives has had it right all these years, Like time in an hourglass, so are the Days of Our Lives. I watched that drivel for years all through high school and the like and not once did the smooth voiced commentator stop and tell me, "Hey you, there, sitting on the couch, I'm not saying this for my personal benefit. You're going to want this information later on. Bank it, buddy." Not once. I will tell you that my parents *did* tell me, though. But I failed to listen, as it usually went when I was a teen. Man, I could kick myself for all the millions of times I should have listened to them when they told me the basic things like "time goes by fast, cherish it." "These moments will be gone before you know it." and "You won't be friends with all these folks forever. You move on and so do they." 

I say all this because I had the revelation tonight that this is the last day of summer of Chachi's last summer as an elementary school kid. This time next year, she'll be going to middle school. She won't be under my wing anymore. It will be her time to climb out on the edge of the nest and learn to fly a little on her own. Not that I think she's going to jump out of the nest and fly to Bermuda or something. (If you know her, you know that could be a possibility with her because that child can do anything she puts her mind to) But she will be preparing to move on to the next phase of her life. A step closer to all the things that come next. Out of the comfort and safety of elementary school and putting her foot into the door that leads to the real world. 

I laid with her for a long time tonight. Smelling her hair and holding her hand while chit chatting and enjoying being with her. I'm going to cherish those moments forever. I'm going to lock that snippet of time away in my heart and when I'm old and grey(er than I am now) I will recall that quiet moment we spent while she was still *little*. I've had a pit in my stomach since this morning and now I know it's a bad case of the First Day of School Blues. Where's Bo Diddley when you need a theme song played, hun?