We’ve had an ambulation revelation. Georgia can ride a scooter. Georgia can ride a scooter to school. It’s not that hard; all she has to do is this:

Puhlease, pooleeze, pleese, pleez, puleeease, Mommy, pppoooleisze, pouleise, pleeease?

She leaves me no edgewise as she straps on her helmet and pops atop the hot pink ride. We set off down the slope with me at a galloping stride just to keep her in sight.

The car! The driveway! The curb! The crosswalk! The bump! The thistle! The nub! The wisp!

I squawk nonstop warnings as her wheels squeek on ahead. And I smile, glad to see that the farther she goes, the smaller she looks in her baby bicycle helmet, Princess backpack and Hello Kitty anklets. In truth, she’s already outgrown all those things, but I’m glad that I get one more private viewing, one more one-man-show.

Her school won’t allow the scooters to stay for the day, so I take the wheels and wobble my way back up the hill. I’m pumping up the homestretch when I see my husband’s car approach. He slows his pristine, all-electric, pride-and-joy to a stop and rolls down the window.

“There’s nothing I won’t stoop to,” I say by way of explanation. He thinks I’m complaining, but I’m not.

It was, for all of us, a peculiar night. Something about this last gasp of spring: a bit restless, a tad eager, a wee hurried to reach the full stretch of summer. I woke and stayed awake in the deep darkness of the small hours, then submerged into underwater slumber through the 6:30 a.m. alarm. Finally up and walking past Georgia’s door, I see a square of paper on the floor. She’s made a sign in red ballpoint to intercept my morning bee-line to the coffeemaker:

Is this how suddenly it passes? After only 7 years, hardly 7 years, barely 7 years, she is now the vigilant one? The one to wait and watch for the night to lift? For the sleepers to stir? For the ticks to tock toward morning’s reunion? Later, walking the dog, I found a tiny bird’s nest. It was empty; the baby had flown.

I’m in the middle of my own meltdown, a tantrum, a typhoon in the kitchen. Cabinet doors slam; the walls shake. Georgia looks up. She’s paralyzed; the storm leaves her no safe ground. She fingers Daddy’s loose change on the counter. Then, with only magic at her disposal, she asks.

“Mommy, do you want a lucky penny?”

Why yes, I do, my love, my saving grace. I will put it right here.