As we reach the end of the school year, I am having lots of realizations about my kids, about my daughter in particular.

This week is kind of a fun week for the kids at her school.  They are doing end of year projects and they were given many choices: cooking, volunteering, micro biology (to name just a few) and these projects include field trips to enhance the project experience.  My lovely daughter's 1st choice was the “Outdoor Adventure” project, which when originally explained to me, was about playing games like dodgeball, flag football, etc. in the park and going hiking, that kind of thing.  I thought it was a great idea so I wrote the check for the project fee and waited to see if she would get her 1st choice. 

One day last week when I picked her up from school she jumped in the car while waving some paperwork at me.  It was for the “Outdoor Adventure” project and she was very excited about getting her first choice so, of course she wanted to read the paperwork to me right away.  It listed the activities they would be doing each day and instructions about what to wear; jeans a hat and sunblock for hiking, what to bring; a water bottle, and a sleeping bag and tent for the camping trip.  Suddenly I was panicked and I just started asking questions:  “Camping trip?  What camping trip? Overnight?  How many nights? Where are you going?  Why didn’t I hear anything about a camping trip when you were first selecting your project?” (Yes, basically each of those thoughts came rolling out of my mouth without waiting for a response to any of the questions.)

It was a knee jerk reaction to the thought of my baby girl, (Yes, I know she is 12, but she still holds my hand and hugs me in public which just rocks my world every time she does it…that’s a story for another time.) being out in the wilderness overnight without her parents.  I couldn’t figure out where these feelings were coming from.  It’s not like she has never camped before, we camp as a family quite often so she is familiar with sleeping in a tent and cooking out.  Also, it’s not like it would be the first time for her to be away from home overnight, she has attended her share of sleepovers at her girl friends houses.  

I just couldn’t seem to reconcile the way I was feeling.  I seemed to be looking for excuses for why she shouldn’t go.  I am actually pretty ashamed of some of the excuses I came up with, things like: The teacher chaperons for the trip are both women, there are no men going on this trip.  Ahhhh, that is so against everything I believe personally and as I write those words, I get angry at myself all over again for evening thinking of such a ridiculous excuse.  I had to remind myself of the times I got upset with people who would say “but you are a woman, who is going to look out for you if you go alone,” when I would go on a road-trip or travel by myself.  Comments like that would just make my blood boil and yet here I was using that same reasoning to justify why I felt my daughter should not go on a school camping trip... for one night... less than 30 miles away.  That’s when I realized, I had better get a hold of myself and figure out where these feelings were coming from.

After a few discussions with my husband and some serious introspective quite time I came to the conclusion that I am having trouble letting go of the little girl my daughter used to be.  I am so proud of the very poised, articulate, and polite person she has become and even though she has evolved into this amazing person over a period of time, I “feel” like it just happened overnight.  I guess this trip just became one of those “milestones” in life that stopped me in my tracks, made me really take a look back and I realized how much she has grown up.  Not to mention, this is just one of the many “milestones” yet to come and each one is like a stepping stone on her path to becoming an adult.  Wow, it’s happening so quickly and it is affecting me so deeply.  It was like I had no idea she was growing up right before my eyes, it just snuck up on me and I reacted.

 I am happy to report my daughter did go on her camping trip.  After-all, my “feelings” were not a good “reason” for her to miss out on a fun and educational end of year experience with her classmates.

 To all those parents who have children graduating, getting married or experiencing any other major milestone this year, my thoughts are with you and you have my utmost respect.  At this rate, I don’t know how I am going to handle the next 6 years leading up to her graduation.  Oh and I don’t even want to start thinking about how I am going to handle going through this again with my son.

 As we reach the end of the school year, I am having lots of realizations about my kids, about my daughter in particular.  First I have to brag a little, my daughter has been a straight “A” student all year long and she is pretty confident that she did very well on her comprehensive exams last week so, she should end the 6^th grade in great standings.