my baby is growing up.

just three and a half short years ago, i held my newborn baby in my arms, amazed at how much like her daddy she looked, how tiny she was in my arms. i was so proud of her, to have been strong enough to hang in there with mommy during a very difficult pregnancy, one in which i feared for her life on at least three occassions.

now, my tiny baby girl has grown up into a active, rowdy three year old who still looks like her daddy, but has the round nose and eyes of her mommy... ;)

but she's growing up! and to be very honest, i'm not ready for that just yet. not right now...
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ok, i'm not sure when i'll be ready for it, but i can assure you i'm not ready for it now. but despite my inability to wrap my mind around the fact that everyone grows up and my baby is no exception, she's doing just that.

she's growing up. no amount of typing that phrase out will keep her from growing up, nor will any amount of typing slow the process of her growing up.

how do i know she's growing up? well the fact that she's only three but wears a 5t is one piece of proof that she's growing up. but even more devastating than that...my baby has decided she wants to go to *gulp* school!

that horrid, terrible, six-letter word. school.

the taste it leaves in my mouth is inexplicable, and i assure you, you don't want to taste it either.

yes, my baby has decided that at the ripe old age of three point five years old, she is ready to leave the nest and enter the world of school. just to prove her point, she has demanded (and i gave in) to carrying her lunch around in a lunch box. for the past two days, i've packed up her lunch in her older sister's last year lunch box, and she has proudly and matter of factly told everyone within earshot "im goin' tuh skewl! see?!?!" as she points excitedly towards her dora the explorer metal lunch tin.

i've had to come up with 20 reasons an hour about why she actually isn't in school, but none of them satisfy her for more than 3 minutes. she's demanding to go to school, and i'm running out of reasons why she's not in school.

now she would be in an actual daycare center except that i don't approve of any daycare centers i've seen in my area over the past three years, and i refuse to take my children somewhere i don't approve of. working in that field at my last job really showed me alot of issues the state has not addressed in the way of daycare centers and i just refuse to have my baby in the middle of all that nonsense. she used to go to homecare, but it's gotten expensive, more than i can afford per week, since i lost my job. it used to cost 80.00 per week, now it's 160.00 per week for her old sitter, who is really the only person i trust with her.

so she's stuck home with me for now (not that she appreciates it, she doesn't).

i have been looking steadily for part time work, so if i'm able to find it, i probably will be able to afford to send her back to her sitter. if i don't find work, i am going to go back to school full time and she can go back to her sitter, which she'd love. then she can finally tote around her little dora lunchbox and actually be going to school (in a sense at least).

and i can be soothed somewhat. because she wouldn't be in school per se, just daycare. and because daycare isn't school exactly, only similar to school in certain ways, i can buy at least another two years of having my baby still be my baby.