Your Local Mom

Twelve years ago I held a tiny little baby and somehow, impossibly, today she’s graduating sixth grade.

I keep looking at her and seeing every version of her at once.
The toddler with sticky hands.
The little girl learning to read.
The kid who asked a million questions in the car.
The one who made me a mom.
And now suddenly she’s taller, funnier, sharper, more independent. Standing on the edge of becoming someone entirely her own.

There’s something so strange about motherhood…how you spend years exhausted, overwhelmed, counting down bedtimes and school drop-offs and hard phases…and then one day you realize the little years quietly disappeared while you were busy living them.

I’m so unbelievably proud of her.
And also not emotionally prepared for middle school at all. 😭🥲💗