Missing the "Mommy Days"

 OMG!  I just dropped my daughter off for her last day of high school - EVER!  I can't believe it.  Its just not quite sinking in.  I will never drive my daughter to school again.  After all those times when I complained and thought of how I would rather be sleeping in, I'll never do it again.  I feel almost numb about it.  On one hand I am happy because I will get to sleep in.  On the other hand she has grown up way too fast.  When I dubbed 2012 "The Year of Change" I wasn't really thinking of all the changes that were coming that were beyond my control.  My daughter wants to get a job for the summer and there is part of me that hopes she doesn't find one.  There is a part of me that wants to spend the summer with her just hanging out and enjoying each other's company.  But once again, that is part of my delusional little world.  If she is here all summer with no job, we will most likely get on each other's nerves and under each other's skin.  A shame really considering I consider this her last summer of being a kid.  This is it.  In the fall she'll go off to college and BOOM - adulthood hits.  I look back at the years past and they are full of wonderful memories but now that will change.  There may not be family vacations.  There may not be weekends with pajama days.  I guess everone with children goes through this at some point but I can't help but think it is harder on those of us with only one child.  If you have more than one, when the first one goes off to college you still have the others at home and by the time the last one goes off to college you are already a veteran of the process.  For those of us with one child it hits us extra hard.  Right now I am trying to figure out how and when this actually happened.  When did I get so old that I have a child going off to her last day of high school?  Nothing like adding to my mid-life crisis.  I am going to hit 40 hard next year.  In the meantime, I have to figure out my new identity since I will no longer be mommy.  I will always be a mom don't get me wrong but those "Mommy Days" of her needing me on a daily basis are quickly drawing to a close.  "Mommy Days" - how I will miss you!  So if you have kids, hold them, hug them and hang onto those "Mommy Days".  The time when they will be spreading their wings and leaving the nest will be here before you know it.