First day of kindergarten, September 2008. Alert readers know this was not the actual first day of kindergarten, which Gracie missed because she had lice. But it was her first day. I anticipate telling that story at her rehearsal dinner.
Last day of kindergarten, June 2009. She looks so grown up to me. On the last full day of school, the day before this picture was taken, the teachers did a slide show in the classroom as part of the “graduation.” They showed each child in September and then again in late May. When Grace’s picture came up one of my friends turned to me, gasped, and said, “She was a baby!” I don’t see the huge change but I know that one has taken place. I suppose it’s the way you don’t notice changes when you live them daily – it’s only the perspective of distance that allows us to grasp transformations and metamorphoses.
Of course this is true in many aspects of our lives – we don’t see patterns and changes as they are being set and then are startled when the full extent of the difference is made real to us. That is, however, a post for another time.
For now it’s Gracie Russell. Six and a half. Leaving kindergarten with new, real friendships, a passion for computers and math, and a combination of confidence and uncertainty that I find both charming and utterly too close for comfort.
I love you, GBP.
She is as lovely as a summer morning. And I know exactly what you mean about the incremental changes. And the apple/tree feeling.