Embrace your shadow

This is the last day of the first week of Kindergarten.  Can I get a "What What" from all the new Kinder moms!?!?  
I feel like I'm crawling across a hurdle at the finish line, dreaming of pizza and a movie at home tonight, staying in my bed till at least 7am, and letting Daniel make pancakes in the morning.
Will this schedule ever feel normal?!?!  

I. am. not. a. morning. person.  I am a night owl.  I work at night, I'm creative at night, I get things done at night; I stay up late.  I watch Jimmy Fallon for crying out loud.  I'm only 30!  (ahh hmm, ok 32.)

I questioned a fellow walking mom (or should I say trench-mate?!) this morning on the way at exactly 7:36am.  She had a child a couple years older and looked like maybe a little more wisdom than I, so I said, "Does this ever get easier?!?"  She turned to me and I saw her tired eyes, frazzled hair and just-rolled-out-of-bed wrinkled sweat shorts.  (To be fair, I looked the same... I just had a baseball hat & big sunnies on!)  "No," she replied.  "It doesn't."  Then scrambling for hope I said, "Well, does the pick-up line at least get better in the afternoon?"  And even more assertively she looked me in the eyes and replied, "No!  It does not."

She walked on ahead of us and I saw her hug & squeeze her sweet daughter, telling her to have a good day and it seemed like nothing she'd said moments before really mattered.  We entered the school, I followed Ryder to his class (although he says he's got it now and doesn't need me to walk him to his room).  I watched him put his stuff in his locker and Paisley and I headed home.  

On the way back she begged to stop at the playground and I begged to go home and drink more coffee.  We walked hand in hand looking at our shadows again as we've done the past few days.
  
I was staring at my shadow, in my head criticizing the size and shape of my hips, thinking about spin class in a few hours when Paisley broke the silence with, "I don't want my shadow!  I want yours!  It's bigger!"  I laughed at the irony of the moment.  

I wanted a slimmer shadow and she wanted a bigger one.
Without thinking I said, "Well you can't change your shadow.  It's exactly who you are and where you are standing in the sun right now."

It's true.  I remember being little and wanting to be older & bigger.  I remember being in high school and dreaming of college.  I remember being in college and wanting it to be done.  I remember being young married and wanting to be a mommy.  Now we reminisce of the days before kids when we didn't have bags under our eyes and could eat dinner at 9pm if we wanted.  As we crawled into bed the other night Daniel said something to the effect of how we USED to be cool... "hey there were days when we would just be heading out for the night at this time..."  

What I wanted to say to Paisley (and to myself) this morning was, "Embrace your shadow sister!"  
Not just your size (I won't go into one of those blogs...  Women, your daughters do not need to hear you criticize your body... just search pinterest for a blog on that! LOL.  Not my topic.)

But where you are in life.  I don't wanna wish away these day of Kindergarten.  The other night I said something like, "another day down... 18 more years to go..."  But I regretted the words the moment they left my mouth.  They seemed so hostile and ungrateful in light of the past year.  

As much as it pains me to mess with 'my' schedule.  I yearn to have the strength to embrace my shadow.  It's not my past, and not my future.  But it's exactly where the sun is shinning right now.  

I wanna be all there.  Even if it is at 5:45 in the morning with a little boy that's "too excited about school" that he just can't sleep.