How Did This Happen?!?!

Last weekend I got a packet in the mail from my son's new kindergarten. I got all giddy with excitement as I saw the return address and the large size of the package. I had a brief moment of, I did it! I actually got him into a school I am excited about! This is going to be so great...

...and then I opened the package. And proceeded to pretty much have a complete panic attack. There are so many forms and contracts and emergency cards and handbooks and rules and lists and... I could seriously go on and on. Now I should mention that none of this stuff is "bad." It's all good. I still have complete warm fuzzies about the school. But it just all feels so...grown up? My kid is old enough to be in school. Like real, honest-to-god school. With carpool lines and volunteering hours and fundraising and just so much STUFF. He can't possibly be old enough for that, can he? Isn't he my little baby with the cute red hair? Wasn't he just born, like last week?

As I was putting this post together I went on a little photo journey. And then I thought you guys might like to go along with me. So here we go...

My baby. Fresh out of the womb. January 5, 2006:

Shortly after getting home from the hospital. Still totally in that "yoda-baby" phase...
(and then we jump forward because the pictures from his first year are all on my old computer and I didn't want to take the time to transfer them all right now...)

Here he is almost 2 years old...helping to decorate for Christmas:
And then a few months later...his first trip to Disneyland (he was just over 2 years old):
Then a year later...I believe he was three in this picture... Certainly getting to be a bigger boy, but still tiny enough to fit his whole little self in my bathroom sink...
And then the following year...becoming a bigger boy, but not too big to give in to the car-ride-naptime...
...and then last year...in his "all things Buzz Lightyear" phase...
...and then finally this past weekend at the zoo...

Somewhere along the line my baby went and grew up on me. He's getting ready to start kindergarten. He is a big boy, that is going to go to school Monday through Friday and he's going to have field trips and "Kids Night Out's" and new friends and new experiences...and he will be in the same school with the same kids from now until he gets ready to go to middle school.

And really...it is all just a lot to swallow. I am not sure if I'm ready for this. But I guess that isn't the important thing. The important thing is that he IS.