Missing Child

Samira has been away since Wednesday, off to Outdoor School. I miss her like crazy, but I admit I love the silence. I love not preparing dinner for the family. I adore the solitude, the days where the clock doesn't start ticking its way from wake-up to bus pick-up. 

She's such a grown-up kid, away for the first time on a school trip. She'll undoubtedly return filled with science and nature facts, fun tales about the ropes course and 10-foot wall they scaled, gossip about her classmates' PJ's and who was homesick. And of course, she'll come home soaking wet, since beautiful weather yesterday and the day before was followed by today's dreary rain. I'll have to scoot over to Various Ramblings, to see what she has to say, since her daughter's on the trip too (VR has just finished radiation, so that's two homecomings to celebrate).

The parenting books don't tell you about the rite of passage when your baby starts to leave home.