We have a saying in Colombia: “No todo es color de rosa”, which means not everything is pink and perfect. I'm not a big fan of pink but I do like how it combines with gray, and lately I've been thinking about these two colors because I want to make them a part of my life. Not so much in the physical sense, but more in how I live and how I raise my little one.

Last year I had a “primiparadas”, which is a Spanish word that means when a person makes a mistake when they're doing something for the first time. I dedicated two months to prepare my little girl for her “big people school” I’m not going to lie, I was intense. I would tell her stories of all the wonderful things she was going to see and do because, as I imagine every mom would want, I was dreaming her first day of school was going to be one of the most important and happy moments in her life.

The first day was great. She was relaxed, a little shy, but happy. But as the weeks went by she experienced things that surprised her because I forgot to mention them. I focused so much on the beautiful, perfect things of her new school that didn’t even contemplate the not so great things. I could have made her transition even easier if I had told her the pink and the gray. I forgot to tell her that some days she might not want to go to school because she's sleepy or tired, but she would have to anyway. I forgot to tell her that all her classmates didn’t have to be her friends, or that it was normal she wouldn’t like all her classes.

We may be tempted to only tell our children all the good aspects of the changes they will encounter, but gray is a part of life and it's good for our little ones to know that too. I have learned not to put so much pressure on me and on my daughter, to talk to other moms about their experiences, to ask my little girl about her feelings and together prepare for the new phases ahead, enjoying them but also realizing that no todo es color de rosa

Ana