Holy cr*p...

"what should i do with my hair for grad pics?? plz help" 

I don't know why this post on Facebook tonight, from dh's cousin's son -- the one born in April 1998, six months before Katie should have been born -- should have been such an "OMFG" moment for me. 

I know Katie would have been in Grade 8 this year at school. 

I know that, at local schools, Grade 8 is the last year before high school (at others, it's Grade 9). 

I know that junior high school grad has become a big f-ing deal for teenagers these days (the preparations so elaborate, including fancy dresses, tuxes, manicures & pedicures & hairdos and even limousines, that I have heard some of parents wonder what their kids will have to look forward to when they graduate from high school, nevermind get married). 

I even voted on dress photos posted by an online friend in another province, whose daughter is graduating Grade 9 this spring & already desperately seeking THE Perfect Dress and planning her prom.

And it never dawned on me that, in a parallel universe, I might be doing exactly the same things -- shopping for prom dresses, fussing over hair for grad pictures. With Katie. This year. 

Maybe it did dawn on me and I was just in denial. (I'm not old enough to have a daughter who would be graduating junior high school, am I? It hasn't really been FOURTEEN!!! years, has it??) 

Thank goodness Little Girl Next Door (born in April 1999, six months after Katie would have been born) is only in Grade 7 this year. I'm not quite ready to see her leaving the house wearing a prom dress yet.