Once In A Lifetime

The recurring lyric in the title song keeps asking...How did I get here? I have found myself singing this song quite often, these past few weeks.

In my ever changing moods, it has finally hit me. Things are changing, kids are growing, life is moving in the ultra fast lane and there I am standing in the middle of the madness with the recurring lyric playing in the soundtrack of my head.

I know that the cheerleader has one more year of school. Thank goodness!!! By this time next year, you all will be begging me to be sedated, sending me cases of wine or telling me to simply, ZIP IT. (hahaha, shout out to my fav show) But, for different reasons, this year coming to an end, is making me look back on life and really wonder where did the time go?

The cheerleader is driving, she is very independent and except for the large wads of cash that she needs from us on a daily basis, she is pretty self-sufficient. She thinks and operates all on her own. I have been fast forwarding to this time next year and have already started planning her graduation soiree. Yes, I am a party planner and if I thought people would hire me in the town where Maggie's Farm is located, I would try to parlay it into a business.

This weekend is our last dance recital. We started recitals when the cheerleader was in first grade. Her hair was in shiny blonde ponytails and she was dressed in a poodle skirt doing a tap dance to, Rock Around The Clock with a seque into, It's My Party. This year, she drives and she will have plans after the recital. No more celebration dinner after. No more Mommy/Daughter day of recital when she got beautified and a manicure and sat while I put all of her makeup on for her performance. She does it all on her own,now. She will perform her tap solo and her gymnastics for the last time. She just won't have time to be in a recital, next year, when we are GASP...busy with graduation.

This coming week will find us going to our second college visit. The first visit was in October and we went to the college that I attended. I cried as we pulled into the parking lot of campus. She told me she was not walking on campus with me crying. But, who wouldn't cry at the sight of their old college that they had just brought their own daughter to now visit????

It will be the last summer of 4H and the cheerleader's goat projects. When you live in the country, you take lifestock 4H. She started out taking fashion 4H and won many awards and then shifted to goats. What a laugh a minute that summer was with our first goat. And, the cheerleader surprised everyone by winning her division and her class with that crazy goat. Trophies and ribbons, galore. So, she is now working with goat number 4, this summer, and it will be the last fair of goat shows.

As a cheerleader, she will attend her last cheer camps and will host her last peewee cheer camp. Instead of being the new, incoming cheerleaders, her group will be the leaders and role models and overall helpers to the coaches. It will be our year of Senior Nights at games. It's a senior year with the last homecoming, last prom. It will be a celebration of the bittersweet, all year.

I am happy for all of this!! The trip down memory lane isn't meant to be sad. I am proud of the young lady that now stands before me. She is a shiny, happy, almost adult ready to pave her way after next year. Sometimes I still catch glimpses of the little girl riding her Barbie bike, driving her Barbie jeep and seeing how high she can swing on her swingset. Those are the flashes in memory when I ask myself, just how exactly did I get here?