The End of the Beginning

Today Margie (my little one) got to spend the afternoon with her Daddy. In case you don't know how adorable they are:

So, anyway, they were going on a short drive to Nana's house, and when they pulled up to the office to pick-up the diaper bag my Marge-mallow was in her big girl car seat for the first time! Joel and I bought it last weekend, but we hadn't yet gone to the trouble of installing it, safety-checking it and all. While I was working Joel did it all by himself, and when I saw her it was such a shock to me how big (and sweet) she looked in it. Ah, how the months have passed. I just know I'll be saying the same thing about "the years" before I know it.

All of these sentimental feelings got me thinking about the bazillion other firsts we have coming up. For instance, the first time we drop Margie off at summer camp and say goodbye to her for a whole week. And...shortly thereafter...the first time we come to pick her up. Joel and I dropped-in on the closing ceremony of this (the first bona fide) week of summer camp this evening. What an exciting time. The most amazing thing about it is the energy of the campers as they struggle to translate to their parents the intensity of their camp lives: intense fun, intense play, intense new friendships, intense spiritual growth. And, try as they may, they can't do it. There's just too much. So they can only hint at it and relax in the familiarity of their parents' presence. But I'm sure the parents see the little changes in them that camp has made as they transition back into their daily lives. Tonight's little closing bash was fun-filled for sure. At one point, the campers got the parents on their feet to join-in an energizer:

See how energizing camp can be?

So just like it's the end of the beginning of the summer camp season, it's also the end of the beginning of my firsts with Margie. But that's just a way of saying that there's so much more to come.