Entering the workforce

My girls have just got their first gig as babysitters. A young mom with four little ones from our church just called and asked if they could come mind the kids while she helps her husband out with the phones and books at the new business he just started.

It seems very strange to think that my two little girls could be old enough to take care of someone else's little girls (and boys). Yet there's Meelyn out in the kitchen making a big pitcher of iced coffee -- I'm embarrassed to tell how quickly the first one disappeared -- and Aisling is at the piano playing her Mass music and they both seem so...competent. And so old, somehow.

Because I'm thinking it could only be, like, yesterday, when Meelyn, with little sticky-uppy pigtails and tiny white teef, was tugging on my hand and earnestly asking to go out back to play in the little "fwee cool," her own brand of toddlerese for "swimming pool." And Aisling, who endured her babyhood with a grim determination worthy of the RAF during the Blitz, was crawling through the house, gripping her ever-present baby bottle full of cold water, stopping every now and then to turn herself upright and take a few fierce sucks before going back to all fours and crawling off in search of new areas of the house to conquer.

I honestly can't decide if this makes me happy or sad. Which is it?

Does any mother ever know?