Six to sixteen

One morning you'll wake up and find another gray hair on top of your head as you inspect the latest wrinkle on your face.  You'll remember that day at 29 years old when you decided to stop coloring your hair for fun because one day you would have to do it for real.  One day, at 40 years old, you'll be walking on a crowded train platform with hundreds of other commuters pushing their way to their crummy cubicles and you'll think that maybe, just maybe, you should have chosen a different career path.  But it will be too late to change anything.  Some day, your life will be completely different than what you ever thought it would be.

Don't be in such a hurry to grow up.

I don't know if this is true of all parents or if having to care for three infants and then three toddlers at once clouded my perception but I hadn't really been able to think of the future when the girls will be much more independent than they are now until recently.  One day, Emily brought a book with her to read in the car and I suddenly had this image of us all on vacation, reading books during downtime.

There's a chart in Allie's classroom for the kids to keep track of how many wiggly teeth they have and how many teeth they've lost.  Every few weeks, Allie will comment to us that her count is still at zero and zero.  I hug her and tell her that that's okay.  Don't be in such a hurry to grow up.  Those teeth will come out when they're good and ready to.

This is what Allie wore yesterday for outing.  She had picked out the shirt and pants herself at Tar-jay the day before.



They still believe in Santa Claus and sleep with stuffed animals at night.  And that's okay.    



We're in no hurry.


* Those are clip-on earrings she made at a birthday party.