My daughter, my oldest child, is about to be in the system. On the grid. A matter of public record for the very first time.

She’s standing on the precipice of full-day kindergarten.

Social security number notwithstanding, this feels like the real societal deal to me; a kid existing outside of the realm of her parents, armed only with new Velcroed sneakers and an ice pack for her lunchbox. She’s so close to leaving the bubble of her infancy; that gorgeous, glorious time where I could answer any question and her frog blankie was always within arm’s reach. She’ll have a daily schedule. Our whimsy will be relegated to early evenings and weekends without birthday parties.

Sure, I can keep her home on occasion. We can head in late to school when need be. But tardy slips and excused absences? That’s the stuff of permanent record. We’ve never had that before. Floor naps and Dora the Explorer marathons, sure, but never a tally that could be used against us.

Everybody and their elderly neighbor will stand in line to tell you how fleeting each phase of childhood is. It is. It absolutely is. And it one thousand percent is not. (4 a.m. feedings take exactly one calendar year to wrap up. Sitting across from a potty training kid and inventing ten new verses to The Itsy Bitsy Spider is a form of endurance training.) But before you know it, five years have flown by. And you’re fully expected to make your child part of the general public, a small person who only recently discovered that your living room blanket tent wasn’t what other people meant by “camping.”

I want them to love her. The outside world, that is. I want them to see this little girl and respect the fact that she believes everybody is inherently good. I want them to protect her spirit for a little bit longer. Soon enough she’ll discover that people can be dishonest, that kids can be incredibly mean. And I knew this, I admit that I knew this going in. Even my first day on the job, I knew that I’d prepare her to exist in the world without me for hours (and eventually months) at a time.

I just never realized she’d still be a baby when that first day came.

My almost-kindergartener is excited for school. And shouldn’t she be? Isn’t that the whole point? My husband and I, despite combined neuroses and occasionally inappropriate music, have managed to raise a functional citizen of society who wants to be a big kid in the world. This should- and does- fill me with pride. Very few people, Mama Bates excluded, think that having a fully dependent baby is a forever job. (Even on my worst parenting days, I take such solace in the fact that I am not Norman Bates’ mother.)

It’s still hard to say goodbye to that bubble. Because when you’re in that bubble, you think it’ll last forever; safe inside the circle where decorative Band-Aids heal bad dreams and time slows down for rocking chair snuggles. But that’s not the nature of bubbles. That’s not what they’re meant to do. Bubbles float away. They change shape. If you’re really lucky, they occasionally reflect absolutely beautiful moments through the shimmer of the sun. And they pop.

Our bubble is about to pop. That’s its job. When it does, it’ll be time for my daughter to go begin hers.

Which means that I’m doing mine.