She is Five

Before I launch into my serious, tear-jerking post. I must share what came home with Ava from preschool yesterday:

I have two thoughts on this: 1) What on earth is a brick pole??? 2) Of course, on the one day that I arrange to have a photo shoot with a horse, that is the day that she would run into a brick pole (?!) and have a nice line on her forehead. Thank goodness for Photoshop! (Although you can still see it if you look hard enough.) OK, now, find your tissue, because…

She is five.

I’ve had several people ask me how it feels to have a five year old. Although I’ve yet to slow down enough to let the fact sink in, it does seem like five is a big deal.

Five is the end of the preschool years. Before her next birthday, she will have started kindergarten.

Five is old enough to start reading. Which means I won’t be able to spell the words I don’t want her to be able to understand much longer.

It is hard to believe that the beautiful baby that came into the world on October 11th, 2006 to two parents that knew so little about babies and parenting is already five years old.

She’s still beautiful. And she knows it.

She’s really smart. She uses big words. And she knows how to turn a conversation around to her advantage. It’s kind of scary.

She has an incredible memory. You can never tell her anything that you don’t want her to remember. Forever. She can memorize Scripture like nobody’s business. Included in her repertoire is Psalm 23 in its entirety. That’s a whole chaper, ya’ll.

She loves to dance.

She loves her brothers ferociously. She plays mommy turtle with Izzy almost every time he asks her to. Izzy gave her a dinosaur for her birthday, and she was excited about it.

She is on the strong-willed side of the personality spectrum. She will fight for her opinion. Right now, that causes lots of frustration for me. Someday, it will help her.

She is a first child. That makes her a guinea pig for me.

She needs structure. She needs time to adjust to change.

She is totally girl. She cares about how she looks. She values her relationships.

Raising a girl is scary. And beautiful. There are days where I feel like I’ve already failed. And there are days that I can barely contain my pride in her.

We were having a talk this morning about respect and obedience. I explained to her that she’s under our authority until she is at least 18. I showed her on a piece of paper the 5 years that’s she lived under our authority and the 13 years she has left. Of course, the point was that she has a long time left under our authority, so she might as well be respectful and obedient of us so that she won’t be miserable for 13 years. But looking at that piece of paper, it seems like so much of my time with her is already gone.

Happy (late) 5th birthday to my princess!