Growing Up

Our kids just keep growing up no matter what we might try to do to stop them.  It happens almost without our noticing and in fits and starts, but them I look over at one of these beautiful girls and am astonished at how much they've changed or just what they can do without help from me.  It's a bittersweet realization. There's more freedom in my days now that our children are getting older and need me less, but I still sometimes miss the little girls they used to be.

Lately Natalie has been growing in so many ways.  Most noticeably, she's getting so much taller!  In fact, she's almost caught up to Samantha's height and Sam is two years older than her.  They can share clothes (but not shoes) and I think they are both okay with having double wardrobe options.  

Most American kids her age have just finished up kindergarten, but Natalie won't go to real school until this fall.  Still, I feel as if she should know how to read at this point so I've been trying to teach her and it's finally starting to click a little bit.  It's been both fun and frustrating to work with her and see that little light bulb turn on in her cute blond head.  I still sometimes wonder what's going on in that brain of hers - today she looked at the word SAND and read it as TREE.  Really, Natalie? That's not even close!

She recently learned how to ride her bike and has decided that her new name should be "Natalie awesome bike rider Moran".  She rides her little green bike every chance she gets - to and from school, up and down our street, and has joined us for some longer family bike rides.  She even likes to ride her bike alongside me when I'm going for a run and she makes a surprisingly good partner who keeps me motivated to keep moving forward.

Just last week she FINALLY lost her first tooth!  I say finally because she was worried it would never fall out, the tooth fairy would never come, and she would have baby teeth forever.  There were lots of tears and many conversations about teeth taking a while to fall out and needing to not worry so much.  It's hard to be patient when you're six.  Like most of our girls, she wiggled and wiggled her tooth until it was just barely hanging on anymore but would not let us pull it out.  After what seemed like forever (even to me!) it fell out on it's own and she was so very excited!  

Maybe this is a story for another post, but Abigail is nuts about loose teeth.  As soon as one of hers is wiggly, and way before it's really ready to come out, she'll yank it out of her mouth.    Usually there's lots of blood involved and it takes quite a while for the new tooth to come in.  I asked her once why she doesn't just wait until her teeth are more loose and then pull them out and she looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Mom, I need the money.  I'm saving for college."  Well silly me - who needs teeth when you have college to plan for?

Sorry to get off track there . . . I guess I'm just getting old because it makes me finally realize that what all those crazy old ladies say is true - they do grow up quickly.