Me Without You

I am losing my sidekick.
For the last almost 6 year I have spent each day with Abby by my side, and now the public school system is breaking up the band. School is starting next week and I have to get ready to pack my kid up and ship her off on the bus every morning to kindergarten. While I am totally excited that she is going to school and is growing up and is so totally and completely awesome in every way, I can't help but be a little bummed that we are now tied to someone else's calendar.
I am now the parent of a school aged child, do you know what that means? I should now plan all vacations, doctor appointments and fun outings around days off of school. I can no longer wake up and decide to go to the Jelly Belly factory in Wisconsin. I can no longer go to Detroit for long weekends. I can no longer declare it 'jammy day' and allow up to loll around all day watching TV and playing board games.
Major bummer.
The upside is that now going to the doctor while she should be in school will be fun. And we will have some much needed structure to our days. And she gets to ride the bus which is something that I dreamed of as a kid. And she gets to make new friends (who may or may not attend the same school as her for 1st through 5th grades thanks to the asinine school board). The upsides go on....
As with the start of every school year there are pros and cons, but I can't help but feel like we are turning a page here. We are no longer the parents of a toddler named Abby, or even a preschooler named Abby. My girl is off to kindergarten and I hope that they are ready for her because she is the best pal, buddy, sidekick, partner in crime, cohort, and crony in town. She is wicked smart, terribly funny and adorably serious about things. She is intense, and silly, and frustrating. She can be divinely irritating and amazingly helpful. As I tell her all the time, she is the bomb.
I can't help but think that Nora and I are going to be a little lonely without her around to orchestrate shows and plan tea parties all day, but really we are easing into this whole school thing.
After all kindergarten is only half the day......