Big 6

Another tiring but fun-filled week!

Just popping in really quickly because I missed my big girl's birthday post, and I wanted to squeeze it in before her birthday week is over.

So.  We are six.

Last weekend, I went through our downstairs desk and cleared out old things so that it will be neat and organized for homeschool.  It has always been N's home for housing all things drawing and crafting.  I found zillions of drawings that had been stashed there during her preschool years.  She would always come home from a morning of activity at school, and be really ready for a rest time.  She would lay on my bed with me for at least an hour, and some days she would actually sleep, but mostly she drew... pages and pages and pages of drawings, and they were all so detailed and expressive of whatever was going on in our lives at the time.  I found drawings of C doing lots of baby things, drawings of the new friends we made that year and the fun times we had at playdates, pictures of holidays with grandparents and family, and even of Mommy and Daddy running the different races we did during that time.

I choked up as I went through it all, because that tiny girl who was still so little and needed rest every day is pretty much gone.

She still loves to draw, don't get me wrong, but the main thrust of her life right now-- the thing that occupies most of her thinking and her time-- is taking on challenging tasks and accomplishing them.

Things like learning to tie her shoes.  Or teaching herself the technique of blowing a bubble with her chewing gum.  Or practicing learning to ride a bike without training wheels.  Or crossing the monkey bars at the playground.  When she knows that she wants to learn something, she works tirelessly and obsessively until the task is accomplished.  Driven she is, and no longer is there any time for aimless doodling, or laying on beds and resting.  When she draws a picture these days, it is usually part of a larger project-- like a puppet theater, or a make-believe palace of blocks for her Barbies.  She is "thinking big" now.

She got to meet "the REAL Elsa" at a friend's birthday party earlier this summer.  WHOA!!!

There's nothing she can't do.  Her wings are growing and spreading, each day preparing to take on larger tasks and bigger challenges.  Her confidence astounds me.  

She left to stay at Grandma's for a few days this week, and never looked back, and apparently never even missed me!

Yes, she is officially grown up, and will only get more so.

But I look at her sometimes and within that grown up face I can still see my baby.

And that's something that I'll always hold dear in my heart.

I am so proud and so excited to see the new things she will accomplish in the year of six.