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No pictures today, just words. The day after tomorrow, Alaina will start kindergarten. Although she will only be there in the morning, after spending nearly all the waking hours of the last 5 1/2 years of my life alone with her, it feels like the end of an era. An era that also started winding down when her baby sister was born back in April. I've spent significantly more hours with Alaina than I have with Todd over the past years. Those hours have been filled with laughter, tears, books, art, power struggles, singing, dancing, lots of bodily fluids, dresses, car rides, friends, hugging, screaming, praying, and learning. In the past year I've seen her become more and more independent, in good ways. She could get through the day just fine without me. Kindergarten is a reminder that she is an individual with her own experiences, thoughts, and feelings, and over the coming years she will have more and more hours that I won't witness. I won't see when someone hurts her feelings and comfort her immediately. I won't see when she hurts someone else's feelings and be there to remind her to apologize and mend things. I have to trust that I've trained her along the way and that she will make some right choices and will learn from the bad ones. As I told her the other day, even though I won't be her kindergarten teacher, I will still be her teacher and love doing so. I'm excited to watch her discover more of who she is, what she loves, and how to love others. And I'll be here after school every day ready to listen to all the details.