By: Angela Gillaspie Copyright © 2005 All Rights Reserved

Our children's firsts are exciting, scary and fun for them (and us too). There's one particular first that I'll always remember: sending my child off to school for the first time. Ashley is my oldest and only daughter and she was the first to go to school.

When The Day finally arrived, I thought to myself, "You can handle this, it's no big deal."

That morning the house flowed smoothly; everyone got up and dressed on time and without incident. This was amazing because getting around was difficult for me and my 38-week pregnant body, plus I had Josh - a preschooler back then - running around underfoot.

During the five-minute drive to school, I reminded Ashley how much fun she was going to have at big school, all while I repeated silently to myself, "I am not going to cry, I am not going to cry."

We pulled up in the carpool lane and I leaned over and kissed her cheek, "I love you baby, have a great day!"

She mumbled, "Uh huh," as she got out of the car. She never looked back; she walked straight into the schoolhouse.

Josh started crying, "I wanna go wif sister!"

I couldn't hold it any longer and also began crying, "Me too!"

Back at the house, Josh stopped crying so that he could watch me cry, "You haba boo-boo? I get choo Band-Aid."

This of course made me cry harder, "No sweetie, Mommy is - um - missing sister."

He crawled into my lap and hugged me tight. Rubbing his hand over my big multi-colored maternity shirt, he exclaimed, "I got an idea!"

He jumped off my lap, ran out of the room and returned with Ashley's favorite tie-dyed cotton sundress, "You can use this, Ashley won't get mad atchoo."

I buried my face in the soft garment and took a deep breath. Josh asked, "You okay?"

I smiled, "Mommy is much better now; thank you."

He beamed from ear to ear and we soon got back to normal on this very long day. I carried Ashley's dress with me all day; Josh thought it was funny that I had a 'blankie.'

I survived the day, did not go into labor and that afternoon I picked Ashley up from school. Driving home, she was too busy telling me about her day to notice that I had her favorite dress on my lap; I handed it to her when we arrived home. She skipped to her room and put it on. I gave her a big hug and thought, "I made it!"

Since then, I've had two more children, Nick and Jake. Just so you know, when Josh and Nick started school, I didn't carry around a 'blankie,' but I did cry a lot.

In just a few more years, I'll be doing it one last time with my youngest child Jake. I'm sure I'll be crying not only that my baby is growing up and going to school, but because this is my last baby that is going to school.

It doesn't get easier with each child - that's for sure. And now the next big firsts to dread are driving and dating.

Stay tuned for more SouthernAngel's weepy stories!