The End of an Era.

The feeling has been creeping in quickly for weeks now.  That reminicent realization that a whole era is beginning to end.  An era that will never return.

The era of days that bleed into one another wonderfully with no obligations...but to be together.
...To navigate life's most basics feats of learning to eat, to walk, to speak, to grow....to befriend, to love, to give....to sin, and to be forgiven.

I can't say that we will never homeschool, or never spend all these days together again....but I know they will somehow look different if we do.  Things like math and reading proficiency will play a part.  And so many 'facts of life' that we have been oblivious to now will start to bubble to the surface.  Your questions will be different, our relationship will shift in new ways, and we will learn together all over again.

Eadie Cate, how dear you are to me.  You have filled so many days of your-almost-six-years with unquenched laughter.  You have become a little friend I love to sneak away with.  You've been my near-constant companion for everyday of these years, and you have knitted and weaved your way into my heart.

I find myself wondering if I've taught you the right things.  I think about how I haven't showed you how to tie shoelaces and how you're still on training wheels and how we need to learn to swim.  I failed you in ways far more serious than these.
And yet, I know you are not really mine.  Your faithful Creator loves you far more than I do. He gave His most precious possession in your stead. And He will see us through to another era....and another....and on and on.....

....thankful for you, little goose.