Mother Ramblings

"I have a fat cat. His name is Sam. He likes to play with a ball."

So ends the writing endeavor of my 7 year old. No, we do not have a fat cat named Sam, rather it is wishful thinking on her part. We're both allergic to cats and therefore will not have one. At least no time soon.

Reading the story the Pipsqueak wrote got me to thinking. When did my child grow up? I mean, I know she's getting older. Heck, she has a birthday every year.

When did she become such a little girl though? No longer a pre-schooler, even different than a Kindergartner, she has blossomed into full fledged 'little girldom' and I'd like to know where I was when this happened.

It seems like just last week, she was that small 17 month old, just off the plane from India, or the short firecracker beating up all the kids in her first daycare. Suddenly, she had glasses, was dressing herself, speaking English, and was toilet trained.

Then, time for pre-school. She enjoyed it immensely, as did I. The field trips, the alphabet books, the beginnings of social interactions and the meeting of a best friend from school began.

Suddenly we were into Kindergarten. Not such a good year. Why wasn't my Pipsqueak loving it as she loved pre-k? Why couldn't she copy from the board, remember her phone number or address, read words I know she knew as she had been spelling/reading them for at least a year? Convergence Insufficiency diagnosis. Vision therapy began and her world began to open up.

Now, we are fully into the throws of first grade. Playground drama- who knew little girls could be so catty at such a young age- though it's better than last year has begun. She's reading, she writing. Adding, subtracting, learning her numbers, she knows her phone number and address. She can put her dishes into the dishwasher, make her own bologna sandwiches, cook a hard-fried egg.

I have been here with here during these transitions. Her normal growth from baby into childhood. Yet I feel as if I somehow missed the growth, though I participated in it, helped her through some of it.

I hear myself mimicked in her words sometimes, my father's mannerisms, my mother's colorful speech. She is, after all, what she has always been, her own little person.

I think Steven Sondheim had it down, "Children will see and learn. Careful before you say, listen to me. Children will listen."*

I think it's time I listen to her. Perhaps parents can learn as well.

*From the musical "Into the Woods"