Five days from now our baby will finish his last day of kindergarten.  Oh. My. Holy. Word.  For some reason, kindergarten doesn't really seem like elementary school.  But first grade is undoubtedly school age.  We will have two school age kids when I swear we were just spoon-feeding mashed sweet potatoes.  Parenthood seems to require living in the dichotomy of holding on tight and letting go; of longing for the days when they are self sufficient and wishing you could go back to the days when they could do nothing without you.  Our goal as parents is to raise self sufficient kids, and this unfortunately requires constantly letting go.  Before I know it our kids will be graduating high school and will be as beautiful as Sydney and as prepared to take on the world as she is.  So rather than longing for what was with our kids, we're looking forward to seeing what our kids will do, with gorgeous Sydney as an example of what wonderful things are to come.