For years, when people said to me – OFTEN – Oh, they grow up so fast! I responded with, Really? Because I’m not finding that. I mean, my days are usually three months long. Yesterday started with a physical altercation over a Nintendo and a stinky unbathed tear-streaked boy stomping up the bus steps, and ended with one girl pooping in the bathtub and another crying over Greatest Common Factors, a math concept I had to Google to remember.

This morning, though, in an instant, I caught up with Time, and Time turned around to watch me coming and whispered, I told you so, Mama.

The Diva this morning went running with her father. She laid her clothes out last night and set her alarm for 6 am – but she was so excited she woke up at 5:30 am and read a book until 6. She couldn’t wait to hit the pavement. Also, while groggy Dad took his Hot Firefighter time rolling out of bed, she purchased another book on her Kindle.

This child has been at my side for 10 years, and in less than that she’ll be gone, tugging at the sleeves of adulthood. She’ll be in college, assuming I can convince Hot Firefighter Husband to stop telling the children that college is optional. Also, since we’ve spent all of the college funds on preschool, financing might be complicated. Still! She’ll have moved on from me!

And listen to this: I think I have to stop writing about her, or at least avoid mentioning the sensitive girl stuff. I know that’s disappointing, but remember, she’s perfect, anyway. Thank goodness the Pterodactyl has the Attachment Disorder and the Tyrant still dances like a stripper. Otherwise, how would I entertain you?

Solace comes in the form of the Tooth Fairy. Two days in a row this week, the Diva lost molars while at school. On the second day, the Tooth Fairy forgot to visit. Do I have to remember everything? So she assumed the Tooth Fairy was busy and would visit the next day. But the Tooth Fairy can only hold so much crucial information in her tiny fairy brain, and she did not remember until the Diva was already awake and had discovered that she had been screwed again. She was still in bed when I leaned down to kiss her, and unstealthily slipped a fiver beneath her pillow. Then I suggested we both look again, and LO AND BEHOLD, there was Honest Abe staring up at us.

She can’t possibly still believe. I saw her glance at my clenched fist holding the goods as I walked in. But I’m glad she pretends for me.

“And, Mom,” she said, “the Tooth Fairy left my tooth!”

Well, of course she did. What would I want with a used molar? But after she went to school, I picked it up from its cute little box and held it between my fingers, a bloody jagged reminder that this child of mine is now running through time, surging ahead, leaving me and some teeth in her dust.