Sunrise, Sunset

by Stephanie Black

This week was a huge milestone in my life. My youngest child started preschool.

For the past seventeen years-excepting the three-week period between when my younger son started preschool and my youngest daughter was born-I've had at least one child at home. Now, for two and a half hours, three mornings a week, I'll have no children at home. This feels . . . momentous. In fact, it was so momentous that after I dropped my preschooler off at school on her first day, I marked the occasion by buying two donuts (yeah, both for me). No one knew-no one else was home as I devoured my treat. (Not that I'm not capable of sneaking snacks when my children are home. If you can't sneak that last ice cream bar without getting busted by your children, you're not trying hard enough).

It's amazing to realize I've reached the point where I'll regularly have blocks of time with no children at home. It only gets more so from here-next year, my youngest will probably start kindergarten (unless we don't think she's ready. They have a late school cut-off date here, and her birthday is in October). In kindergarten, she'll be gone every morning or every afternoon. Then the year after that, she'll be gone all day. That seems really, really strange. This is as big of a milestone as when my oldest daughter got old enough to babysit the younger kids. We no longer had to hire a babysitter when we wanted to go out on a date! Ah, the long-awaited day!

I swear time keeps accelerating. My oldest daughter-who, according to photographic evidence, used to be a baby-is now a senior in high school. That toddler I cuddled is now sometimes taller than I am, depending on whose shoes have the higher heels (barefoot, she's 5'7”. I'm maybe half an inch taller). Next year, she's heading off to college. Two years later, my second daughter will follow. I'm already planning to get all weepy. How can my children be this old?

But back to the present. My goal is to make preschool time my prime writing time. The difficulty, of course, is that this will involve being disciplined, and so far, that hasn't happened. Two and a half hours-minus the time involved in dropping my daughter at school and picking her up-is not very long, and it's easy to let the time slip away. Right now, I'm trying to brainstorm a new project, and I get bored very easily at this point in the writing process, so I tend to check my e-mail a lot, then fall asleep. So if anyone has any extra discipline sitting around, send it my way. I'll buy you a donut.