First grade is a happy milestone, yet it's also bittersweet with the realization that your child is now hurtling toward independence beyond diaper training and story choices. ...

Looking a little perplexed, he nodded and pulled away. I know, I know: I'm a nut. I just wanted to make sure Meredith got to school and to her classroom. I just had to make sure....

It looked much like any preschool room except there were wheelchairs, sign language cards and modified computers. I remember folding up Meredith’s walker on that first morning and putting it in the corner....

When McKenzie was finished, the girls took turns watering the newly established garden. They sat on the bench together and McKenzie instinctively reached over to hold Meredith's hand. Meredith beamed....

As the giraffe placed her mouth firmly around the tree’s top branches and pulled off some more leaves, the children all clinging to the fence watched in excitement. I could only imagine how mundane this all must have seemed to the giraffe at Waco’s Cameron Park...

I could dwell on her delayed development, but with the arrival of spring, I merely have to take Meredith outside to see her metamorphosis....