...and it's not me...or Bryan...or Veronica. Hmmmmmm...ISABELLA, you're right!!! Since Isabella turned 4 in June, we have had to accept the fact that she is really growing up. There were a couple of specific moments that seemed to define this for me as her momma...
*The day in August when I dropped Isabella at Grandma Grace's while I took Veronica to a doctor's appoinment. Isabella told me she could go into Grandma's all by herself. So I unbuckled her and she hoped out of the minivan onto the driveway and into the garage and into Grandma's house....all...by...herself! This was the oddest moment for me, it was as if time stood still and I watched her grow up before my very eyes in a matter of seconds. It was almost as if she was leaving me to start a new journey. She was very proud of herself. It was a precious moment...one that is captured upon my heart forever.
*Isabella went to her first birthday party this fall without Mom or Dad there. It was Reagan Fontaine's bday...her parents are very good friends of ours. They've watched her for me during work before, they're people we're very comfortable with. But there was just somethign about her going off to a bday party without one of us there....sigh:)
*Isabella also went an her first 'authentic' solo playdate this fall when our neighbors invited her to go bowling with them. I was at work and Bryan stayed home with a napping Veronica. Off Isabella went with the Mitzel's for bowling and pizza.
This fall has proved interesting with Isabella and her journey as she grows up. There are growing pains and a lot of confused feelings and emotions about growing up. Isabella gets frustrated at times with not always being able to make her own decisions or choices all the time. She wants to be able to decide her day's agenda and when she plays with you, she wants to be able to decide how you will play. To some extent, this is her personality...she is without a doubt a leader and is really good at organizing pretend games and play with groups of friends. Some of her shyer friends are very appreciative of this aspect of Isabella's personality...it is helpful for them to have some one to look to for direction. But frustratoin can rear it's ugly head and bring out the not so great side of Isabella when she is not able to wear summer clothes during cold weather, when she can't go to a friend's house, when she can't paint on a particular day, etc...One day she told me with great frustration and contempt, "I just want to be like you, I hate being little". I sensed her need to vent and so I asked her to tell me what she hated about being little (I even let me normal chidng of 'We don't say hate, we say I don't like' go...it didn't seem the right or necessary time). Isabella started in "I want to be like you. You never get in trouble and you get to do whatever you want whenever you want. When I have a baby I will be in charge of them and than I will get to tell them what to do". There was more but that is the general gist. She was a ver frustrated little girl. I really felt for her. She wasn't being a whiny kid in this instance...she was really feeling all of this and felt like noone understood. I was glad she expressed herself to me and I hope she'll always be able to be honest with me. I just wish I could come up with something helpful to say to her. I empathize...I spent a lot of years just wishing I could be a grown-up, so I get where she is coming from.Than there is the other side, which we seem to hear much more frequently, "I don't want to grow up, do I have to grow up? Can I be little forever?". These questions are asked with big brown eyes filled with fear and anxiousness and sometimes with Isabella on the verge of tears. I often don't know what I'm supposed to do or how I am supposed to answer these questions. When she asks me if she can please live with me forever, I tell her ABSOLUTELY:) I don't know if this is right or wrong, but how I ache to just comfort he and ease her fears in those moments. As of late, she will tell me that she is going to move to her own house, but it will be right by our house...but than she will ask Bryan and I if we will come and live in her house...than she will ask me if I can babysit her babies...than she will tell me that I will need to still drive her places, like Target, because she doesn't know how to get there by herself:)
Isabella is so young, but I can tell that in her head she is really struggling with this whole concept of growing up. There is this part of her that just wants to take off and fly and go to 2nd grade (like her big cousin Katie) and dance with the big girls on stage at the recital and than there is the other part that wants to stay with Mom and Dad forever and have us drive her to Target until she is a little old lady:) I don't have a lot of the answers, but I just know that Bryan and I will be there to help her out every step of the way as best we can.
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