My first post on this blog was entitled “Changes” and although I’ve thought and thought about other more creative titles that is what I keep coming back to for this post.

A week ago Sunday my neighbor called and asked if we would like to take some furniture off her hands. She was ordering her daughter an entirely new bedroom set and just wanted the old one out. Two dressers, a night stand and a TV stand. We moved the two dressers into their room today (the other stuff went in Ethan’s room). When the two dressers went in a Barbie house and plastic hair styling station came out.

I spent much of the afternoon moving their clothes around and going through stuff (aka clutter), and while I still have some more organizing and decorating I want to do around the new furniture when I was done I stood back and thought it all looked very nice. That is until I walked in a few minutes later and saw Bella in her “new” room…

 

…part of me wanted to scrap the new furniture and bring back the Barbie house and plastic hair station toy that I’d been recently hoping to get rid of. Its just not quite a little girl’s room anymore. Or so it seems to me. I know, its still pink and cute, but the Barbie’s are out of sight. So much so that you could forget they were even there. What’s even worse is that it isn’t just the appearance of her room its the fact that she is really growing up. Maybe the Barbie’s and other toys were just a safety blanket for me. Who knew at age 6 (almost 7) I’d feel her childhood slipping through my fingers so quickly? Its as if I saw a teenager on that bed pouring over her Calculus homework, instead of a first grader trying to work out a story problem.

Lately Isabella has just seemed too grown. It is seeming as though she’s beginning to leave certain things that have been her childhood so far behind. When given money recently she choose to forgo toys and begin a pin collection. When she draws she writes stories to go along with them. She spent most of her time with her Grandma recently playing Sudoku, and it seems her interests and Natalie’s interests seem to be slipping apart – hers being more mature and Natalie’s still being comfortably (for me) in the land of little girl – which, of course, is causing a bit more bickering between the two.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things about the next phase of childhood (because it is still that) that excite me. There are also parts of it that frighten me (mostly about my ability to teach, understand and handle it all).  But realizing today how grown she is becoming I thought of how it seems like barely any time has passed since we brought home this sweet and beautiful baby girl, and I fear that I will blink and she will be a beautiful and sweet adult.

This is why I blog. I blog because some day she won’t be little anymore and I won’t be able to remember the seemingly insignificant experiences that make her – her. I blog so that one day I can hand her a book and say, here is the story of your life as I saw it. I blog so that one day when she is a mom she can know that her mom felt the same way too.

I blog for so many reasons, these are just a few.