Six Months

Last week when I picked up Number 7 from preschool, a friend of mine asked me if I had registered her for kindergarten yet.

I felt the lump rise in my throat upon hearing the k word.

Because to be honest, I can’t think about it, and I told my friend I just wasn’t ready to face it yet, and that I would be that pain-in-the-ass mom the secretary has to call multiple times before I begin the search for the copy of the birth certificate, fill out the paperwork, and make it official.

I know I’ll be that mom because I’ve been her several times already. It’s never been easy to accept with any of the kids.

But this time, it’s really going to be hard.

So once I pulled out of the parking lot,  I blocked out the whole kindergarten thing, and I totally forgot about it.

Until I saw Miss P, Number 5 and 6’s bus driver.

Every morning I wait for the bus with Number 5, 6, and 7. The bus pulls up, the doors swing open, Miss P smiles and gives us the same greeting, saying “Good Morning, Muffin!” and Number 7 and I watch as Number 5 and 6 climb up those steps, find their seats, wave goodbye, and then drive away.

And then Number 7 and I walk back into the house together.

So anyway, when we saw Miss P the other day at swim practice, Number 7 ran up to her and gave her a hug.

And Miss P looked at me and said, “Six months.”

She didn’t mean it in a sarcastic way. She meant it in a good way.

I just looked at her.

Holy shit. Six months.

What the fuck?

Six months???

Miss P only has six more months to wait until she gets to drive her to school.

And I only have six months left with her.

Six months.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

And then last night at swim practice, something happened.

I usually drop the kids at the babysitting room and then go out on deck to coach for at least two hours.

The kids love the babysitting room. The staff is great and they do crafts and play games with the kids.

But last night, for the first time ever, they had to bring Number 7 out to the pool after about an hour.

She started crying hysterically out of nowhere and she couldn’t get herself to stop.

I picked her up and she held on to me for dear life.

She clung to me with her arms around my neck, her legs around my waist and her face buried in the crook of my neck.

It was one of those baby chimpanzee types of hugs.

I asked her what was wrong and she looked at me and said in between sobs in a tiny little voice, “I don’t know.”

I carried her out to the lobby and sat with her for a little bit until she calmed down.

Six months…

Last night after all the kids were in bed, I watched the last episode of Friday Night Lights. It’s my latest binge-watch on Netflix.

If you’ve never seen it, it’s not what you’d expect. It’s not a show about a bunch of high school football players.

I mean it is. But it also isn’t.

It’s about parenting and marriage and compromise and overcoming adversity and stereotypes and perseverance and much much more. It’s such a great illustration of how. without fail, life hands you blow after blow. Challenge after challenge. How you have moments of triumph and victory and success that are inevitably followed by heartache or trauma or disappointment or incredible difficulty.

So I’ve come to love this show. And I didn’t realize I was watching the final episode of the whole entire series until I was about ten minutes into it.

And then, just like that, it was over.

I had “lived” five years of all these peoples’ lives in about six weeks.

And that’s exactly what these last four years with Number 7 suddenly felt like.

Poof. Was that really four years?

Miss P’s words echoed in my head over and over.

And just like Number 7 had earlier that night on the pool deck, I cried.

I cried and I cried and I cried and I cried.

But unlike Number 7, I knew exactly why I was crying.

Six months.

All the tantrums and mischief and powdered sugar incidents and unwrapped tampons and paint disasters and every other thing she’s ever done that has driven me over the edge completely disappeared.

How am I 180 days away from watching her walk up those bus steps?

How am I going to handle that?

How am I going to survive watching her drive down the road through that bus window until she’s too far away to see anymore?

How am I going to walk up the walkway and back into the house alone? Without her little hand in mine?

I don’t know how I’m going to do it.

But what I do know is that today I woke up with only 179 days left, and I’m gonna do my best to make the most of every single one of them.