Birthdays Are Good

At pre-school drop off today I was chatting it up with my gal pal Tracy. 

She was leaning in my car window and we were gabbing about birthday parties. 

I was telling her that Gigi is still wanting to have a Twilight birthday party. 

She mentioned it last year right after her birthday and I really thought she would forget about it. 

No such luck. 

So, in a few months I'll be planning some sort of Twilight themed vampire/werewolf party. 

For 5 year olds. 

I told you (in my last post) to not judge me, remember?

So, as Tracy and I were talking we were contemplating the idea that our eldest children would be 9 soon. 

Then she threw this mind-blower out there...

"This will be the last year they are in single digits."

My heart fell out of my body, slid across the floorboard, and shriveled up into a wad of thumping goo.  

Double digits are coming. 

Double. 

Digits. 

10 leads to 13. 

Which leads to 16 (an age that's making my best girlie Kelly sob herself to sleep at night).

Then they graduate from high school, move away to college, then move farther away to find themselves, and who am I going to talk to every morning when I have my coffee as they eat their toast that I had to cut the crusts off of?

I know my mom had a hard time when she and my dad dropped me off at college. 

I was only an hour away, but she cried all the way home. 

Did she freak out when double digits hit?

I know she passed out cold after giving birth. 

Maybe double digits didn't bother her as much as it's bothering me. 

I think after having a child who has spent any long period of time in a hospital setting you put on a "it's all good" front for everyday events. 

Another birthday?

It's all good!

Another first day of school?

It's all good!

But it's not all good. 

It's stressful because not only do I have this irrational fear about her growing up and having to deal with all the shit girlhood will throw at her, cancer creeps into my head. 

Always the cancer. 

I do know that ALL moms go through the stress of watching their children grow up before their eyes. 

I don't believe that my journey through motherhood is any more special than Tracy's, Kelly's, that lady down the street, my mom, your mom, or you. 

I've just had to sit in a room with oncologists, anesthesiologists, infectious disease specialists, while holding a 5 year old on my lap. 

Then a 6 year old. 

A 7 year old who has become an 8 year old. 

And we still see these doctors. 

And she still sits on my lap. 

And while I'm cheering like a massive crowd at a European soccer match on the inside, I'm "it's all good" on the outside. 

Because I really want my daughter to become a 10 year old. 

And I want her to help me plan her sister's 10th birthday party. 

And I never want her to leave me.

But you know, it's all good.