My little girl has a boyfriend.

I’m still waiting for that to sink in. She’s really quite tired of me grilling her about him but I have no basis of comparison for dealing with this. I never had a boyfriend in high school. Which makes me sound like quite the loser, hehe. On the contrary, I was liked well enough and once the braces and glasses came off I wasn’t too dorky-looking. But either people thought I was Meechie’s girlfriend (my best friend; we were joined at the hip) and didn’t know he was actually gay, or they just weren’t interested in the girl with multi-colored hair in Docs and leather.

My high school experience is so vastly different from my daughter’s. I often find myself floundering on how to react to situations with her. Like her new boyfriend. They’ve only been going out for a week, but have had one formal date (complete with gown and everything) and then tonight she spent the evening at his house watching Repo! and playing Guitar Hero.

I spent the evening hoping she wouldn’t have sex.

Because, you know, I told her not to.

I have to tread carefully here. Sure I joke with her about the not having sex and telling her I’ll be checking for hickies when she gets home, but I don’t want to put a damper on her first boyfriend either. I mean I don’t want her to look back one day and not remember him but instead remember me constantly grilling her about him and telling her not to have sex. Your first boyfriend is special, and hopefully she’ll have nice memories of him one day.

I’m also starting to really feel as if a change has happened with her when I wasn’t looking. It’s been so gradual that I didn’t even notice that she’s not really a kidlet anymore, but a young woman. She’s beautiful and smart, level-headed and so excited for her future. She’s nothing like I was at her age. I coloured my hair every week, wore a lot of black, rebelled like crazy and all I cared about was hanging out with my friends at Denny’s. I lacked something that she has in spades.

Soon she’s going to head off to college. Something I still thought of as years away is literally just months away now and if I let myself think about it too much, it stings. Don’t worry, I’m not going to tie the apron strings tighter or anything. Of course I will let go and hope that I’ve done enough for her to let her make it on her own just fine. But I dread it. I can’t help it. My tiny apartment will seem so empty and huge without her around all the time.

To anyone reading this with very young children – ohhh cherish every single moment, good and bad. Capture as much as you can on video or photos. Blog about them. Because it’s over all too quickly and this little person you’ve had in your life for 18 years will grow up and move away one day and you won’t know what hit you. I hope you have a significant other of some kind – be it best friend, boyfriend/girlfriend, or husband/wife to lean on when the time comes to let them out into the wild. You’re going to need it.