It can only get better from here

So we got Anna registered for school last week ... it was "the worst day of her life."

I know this because she declared it when she arrived at her new school, her father and brother in tow, to meet me for registration. I was filling out forms in the school office, and she plopped down in the chair in front of me and declared for the room's benefit: "This is the WORST day of my LIFE."

"Why is this the worst day of your life?" I asked, wholly amused.

"Because you are making me go to SCHOOL."

"But you are going to love school!" her dad says, in a tone that betrays the hint that he has told her this more than once already.

"Well, honey," I said, "the great news is that, if today is the worst day of your life, then it's all downhill from here. It's never going to be this bad again, and every day from now on will be better than this!"

She glowered at me. "I do NOT see it that way!" she declared. And I shared a peripheral smile with the school secretary.

Anna starts kindergarten on Tuesday. I simply can't believe my little girl will be going to school all day every day. We have visited her classroom, met her teacher, met a few classmates, and gathered all the school supplies. Today she and I are going shopping to pick out her "first day of school" outfit. I think she may be a little stressed about the changes; I think her mother is going to lose it when she drops her off at school for the first time.

My baby is growing up so fast! She is so beautiful, so intelligent, so funny, so dramatic, so vulnerable, so sweet, so crafty, so sassy, so wonderful ... I have no doubt that she is only going to be more and more fun as the years go on. But I have to admit that I will always miss this time, when she was little.

I tell her this every once in awhile, like when I smile at her and say, "Why do you keep growing up? Why won't you stay little forever?" She inevitably rolls her eyes and says the same thing every time: "I can't help it, Mom, but I'll always be your daughter."