Bicycle Race

There are times as a parent that your emotions are so twisted up in bittersweetness that it's difficult to distinguish one from another.

Today was like that. Big time.

After working with her daddy on riding her two-wheeler by herself over the past couple of weeks off and on, I took my firstborn baby girl out today and told her all she lacked now was confidence. That, I could give her.

You are good at this, I told her. You are strong, and bigger than that bike. Mommy knows you can do it.

Little did I know that with those brief words of encouragement she'd take off like a bat out of hell down the sidewalk and only look back long enough to grin from ear to ear.

Pride? Sure. Enthusiastic response? I put on a great show. True emotion? Absolute heartbreak.

Goddammit, what happened to her bibs and bottles? Where is my tiny, bald crawler? She was just here a minute ago, I swear! Where'd she go?

The fact that she starts first grade in a couple of weeks and will be gone from me all day long, every weekday, surely factors into my melancholy.

Oh, I'm thrilled for her accomplishment. She was so flippin' proud of herself. But I'm sad, too.

It's a jagged little pill for mommies to take, this independence thing.