For the past two years, Cora has stood at the doorway and watched Maddie take ballet class: first, as a beginner three-year-old in the pink leotard, and then as a four-year-old in her lavender leotards. Every week, Cora would bring her own shoes and give herself a class in the empty studio, waiting longingly for the day she’d be old enough to take a real class.

Last Tuesday was the day.

My whole life, I’ve been a night person. People knew that to call me before 10 a.m. meant to risk disinheritance – or even dismemberment. When I became a mom, I didn’t understand why everyone got up so early in the morning with kids. I swore I wouldn’t be that way, and put Maddie to bed at 9 p.m. from infancy. When Cora was born and Maddie was two, Maddie was still sleeping until 9 or 10 a.m. every morning.

Cora, of course, is the Incredible Non-Sleeping Girl, but while she’s kept me up many nights, she still had the decency to not get up as early as some of my friends’ kids (5:30. In the morning.) With Cora, I crabbed if she got up at 7:30, and when Maddie started preschool and had to get up at 7:45 to be at school at 9, I thought the world had turned inside out. Where was every shred of human civility?

My baby's starting kindergarten next Monday, and I can't believe it. How is that I've spent the last several months anticipating this moment, and yet I feel so dreadfully under-prepared?

I mean, we've got the back pack. We've got the lunch box - the same one Maddie used last year. When I told her we needed to go buy a lunch box she said blankly, "But I've already got one!" I'm so happy she hasn't hit that must-be-new state yet. But I digress.

As I was saying, we've bought all the "stuff". Maddie went clothing shopping and bought her first day of school outfit - more on that later. Suffice it to say it's done and she's excited. She's been wearing her new shoes, to make sure they don't give her blisters. She's opening the countdown calendar the school gave her. School supplies are purchased and already at the school. I've combed the internet and found some really great lunchbox alternatives that are eco-friendly - but more on that later, too.

In short, we're ready. But I'm looking at this week and freaking out. What to do??? One last trip to the mall for a carousel ride? One last time around the ice-skating rink? Every time we go to the pool I worry it could be our last time.

Stupid, I know. Especially given how excited she is about next week. But I don't want to waste these last few days.

When we hit Colorado for our big family vacation, we were determined to do all things Coloradian (Coloradious?). We hiked the Garden of the Gods, we fished in hard-to-reach canyons, we rode the train up Pike’s Peak. And, oh yes, we met horses.

At ages 3 and 5, the girls are both too young to do any sort of trail ride, which is hard for me since horseback riding is one of my favorite things to do, and one of the best ways to explore an area on vacation. But the girls had heard a lot about Colorado ranches and riding a horse was one of the two things Maddie HAD to do (the other? Fishing) so I cast about until I found a place that offered pony rides. The rides were contingent upon there being a gentle horse left after all the tourists had headed out on trail rides, so it was a sort of “show up and hope” kinda thing. They advertised the rides were available between 10 and 2, so we showed up at 9:45, hoping the early bird catches the worm. I mean, horse.