Growing. me and her.

6:30 am birthday morning. Very excited over an unexepected drawing tablet for the computer

I've never really had any problems having a bunch of young kids.
I know kids, surrounded by others with kids and it just seems normal to have a gaggle of little children.

But as my eldest just turned 11 things are dawning on me.

I felt fine having kids under 10. I'm a young mum and I have kids.

11 just seems so old! I feel like I am entirely too young to have any children over 10 years of age.

I associate with so many people with little children. I'm at the school for hours daily amongst children. It just seems like teens are so far away for me (even though bizarrely I work with the teen girls at church - so I should have SOME idea!) I never had much of a problem sending my kids off to school (there were always a bunch more at home) I was more excited about that stage of life. They still seemed to be kids and that was a part of kid life.

But it seems like everything changed over night (not really, she's still acting the same)
but it was just really bought to my attention like BAM!

She received money for her birthday from her great grandma. Immediately she wanted me to take her to Toyworld to spend it. Funny thing is we strolled the isles for ages and she came up empty handed. She found maybe one thing she wanted but didn't want to spend all of her money on this very small item. I stood there realising that she has perhaps realised she is no longer a child. Last year she found plenty of toys to spend her money on. This year she found none.

She is in that tricky place of no longer a child yet still not teen or woman. She is not really into makeup or clothes or music quite yet. It left her thinking hard about what would she actually spend her money on. I could only come up with two options. I said 'lets leave here and head to the bookshop and smiggle. You like reading and drawing I say, maybe you'll find something there?'

I avoid the shops on Saturdays, and the centre we were in was really busy. She got briefly separated from me in my the crowd. I said 'here hold my hand and we'll walk fast through this crowd.'

I'm used to small hands.
Tiny hands of my two and five year olds in my hand.
Keeping them safe and allowing the older girls to walk on their own.

I grabbed that 11 year old hand and felt shock. {instantly to my heart}

Her hand was as big as mine.

It felt so weird and out of place. It took a bit of manoevering for us to get comfortable.

Even she felt weird.

Growing. It happens.

To the child and the parent.

And we cannot stop it but must continue on, following the ride.

Albeit, running from behind to catch up! My child is gone and I'm scrambling, refinding her.

But luckily and hopefully its just a better version each time.

And maybe we'll even hold hands a bit more often.