Kids Can't Escape

One Girl Band,
originally uploaded by scifitwin.

My wife touched on it yesterday, but I still find it hard to believe. Gert is starting pre-school in a week and a half. Real pre-school. At a real school. As part of what she calls "Early Hild Chood" education.

How is this possible? Do you realize this means that it's been four years since I started this blog? Nearly four years since I left the corporate world to do whatever it is I do now? When did she grow up?

Ah, you say, she isn't grown up. But you're wrong! Matilda has taught her to write her own name. You tell Gert how to spell it and she can write it in giant, but accurate, letters. She even recognizes the letters when she sees them on a sign or in a book.

Last night I asked her if she read her new book and she said, "Yeah, I read it by myself. I didn't know the words so I made up my own. It was about baking."

Even stranger, she is now sitting down and listening to Junie B. Jones books. Chapter books that are written for first graders. She loves them and follows the story over multiple nights.

She can recognize Lance Armstrong on TV or in a photo. She can nearly ride a two-wheeler without training wheels. She even has a favorite cycling team (which is Liquigas, which is pronounced "Leaky Gas" . . . I wonder why she likes that one).

I just don't know what happened. She's not the little lump with cute sausage arms. She's . . . a girl.

When she went back to Grandma's after vacation, I told her I was going to miss her all day because it was the first time in a while I wouldn't see her.

"Don't worry daddy," she said, "when I get home you'll be the first person I see."

Sigh. I only have to live with this sense of pride and sadness until I'm 100 years old and lose my mind. Only 68 more years.