ABBA said it best...

"Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning, waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile...



I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness and I have to sit down for a while. The feeling that I'm losing her forever, and without really entering her world. I'm glad whenever I can share her laughter, that funny little girl."



Slipping through my fingers all the time, I try to capture every minute, the feeling in it, slipping though my fingers all the time. Do I really see what's in her mind, each time I think I'm close to knowing, she keeps on growing, slipping through my fingers all the time."
Copyright Union Songs AB; EMI Waterford Music Inc.


Preschool, her first big step...

She's confident, more so than I ever was. She's so grown up, but she's still a little girl.
It seems like every once in a while she turns into a new person. It was the same when she was a baby. Overnight she would look bigger or seem to talk more clearly or start to feed herself. I used to know her better - what her cries meant, what she was afraid of...


Now there is a new Madelyn - a Madelyn with a whole new world that I am not really a part of. School and teachers, bullies and friends, scary and exciting things that I won't be there to protect her from or encourage her to try. I don't know this new Madelyn well (yet). She's only just starting to know herself.






It's hard to appreciate how little time we have with her when she's whining and we're rushing to get ready in the morning or when I've been up with the baby 4 times or when I feel pulled in a thousand directions...

but thank goodness for ABBA, who reminds me to "...be glad whenever I can share her laughter, that funny little girl..."