Growing Up

First Halloween - October 2006

Last night was Halloween and Kara went trick or treating with our friends.  They are 3 and 6, and Kara is 8.  Kara feels very close to the 6 year old, but there definitely is a serious age gap with the 3 year old.  But, she is sweet and plays with them both anyway.  I'm proud of her for that because when I was 8, I would have begged my mom to not make me play with kids younger than me.  In fact, another family we see often have kids ages 7, 5, and 1.  Kara loves the 7 year old, but the 5 and 1 year olds definitely "get in their way."  I'm finding having a baby before my friends did (especially when I only had one) is starting to not work well for us anymore.  And that makes me so sad.  :-(

Enjoying the pumpkin patch years ago - October 2012

This fall, we went to one pumpkin patch, and went trick or treating.  The pumpkin patch was a flop.  Usually we spend hours and hours there (the past 2 or 3 years in a row), but this year Kara was done after an hour.  Considering it's near our friends that live an hour away, the 2 hour drive wasn't worth the 1 hour fun for Kara, on top of the 2 MORE hours we stayed so our friends little ones could have their fun.  Bummer.  Now our memories from that day are we wish we could have left much earlier, or not even have come at all.  Super bummer.

Not having fun - yesterday

Trick or treating last night was a flop too.  Kara gave little to no thought on her costume (which is okay, I just thought she'd be more excited), she was irritated at smiling for pictures (and even said a few sassy remarks, which we talked long and hard about), and she was done trick or treating 4 houses into it.  Again, since she was with friends, she had to keep going much longer than she wanted to because they weren't done yet.  She has officially decided she never wants to trick or treat ever again. That makes me sad.  :-(

I'm feeling like it's natural for Kara to start outgrowing these things, but it's a bummer that my closest friends' kids are so much younger and still want to do these things.  In my ever present effort to balance 1) let my daughter be who she is and not force her to be something she's not and 2) the whole world isn't about her and she needs to do things for others too; I need to figure out how to deal with this.

Who are you going to grow up to be? - 2009

I'm sure you'll grow up to be a lovely lady -
 just who God planned for you to be

Part of me is grateful this situation will sort of solve itself since we are moving.  Next year at this time, we won't live here.  If we aren't in our newly built house yet, we will probably still be in the Alabama rental home while Michael works there and I manage the details of the final construction.  I'm sad to be leaving old friends, but I'm thinking this is even one more area God is in control.  Kara needs friends who are her own age.  She could even use friends who are older than she is because that's where her intelligence level is.

In the meantime, I will have to figure out how much to make Kara play with toddlers and how much I can leave her at home and meet with my friends on my own.