December 8

Abby took her Senior pictures this afternoon.

I went along and helped the photographer with adjusting the drape and smoothing flyaway hairs, but mostly I just sat off to the side and watched.

I was fine through those obligatory-for-yearbook-purposes drape shots and even after she slipped into the gown and held the prop diploma against her chest. 

But when he perched the cap on her head and I saw the little '2022' on the tassel and she glanced over at me for just a half a second and she looked SO amazingly grown up, I felt my breath catch in my throat. She gave me a panicked "don't you dare cry" look so I held it in, but my hand instinctively flew to cover my mouth (which --as she later pointed out-- was entirely silly since I was wearing a mask at the time).

Because wow: how did we get here? How is she already half a year from finishing high school? How is this real? Those are rhetorical questions, of course, since we got here because time marches on and on and life moves onward and years pass regardless of our willingness to allow it to happen. But as I sat there in that little room looking at my almost-adult girl, I felt a sense of gratitude that I don't know that I'd felt before. Yep, she's growing up. And I am so, so thankful for these milestone moments.