It's pretty great cruising through the old posts of this blog. So much of the childhoods of my kids. Some of whom are not kids anymore.
My darling Birdie is "Sister Chaos" now, serving a Mission and sharing the Gospel of Christ in Texas. She turns twenty in a few days.... and I will not be making her a cake or a trifle or a Pavlova or anything. For some reason this punctuates how "gone" she is, in a way that didn't even hit when we did this past Thanksgiving and Christmas without her. Not gonna lie, I'm a little desolate over it.
My LaLa girl will be an adult (18) two weeks later, and she is graduated from homeschool and working at Target. She drives herself to work and back and takes her little brother to the dollar store as Birdie used to do for her. She's looking at a digital media program at a college down south, and we'll see if either of us survives it come August. A nearly four hour drive away. We shall see.
Sweet Pearl has a drivers license and a FaceTime interview this evening at a local ice cream shop. It will likely be her second job, her first one having been a seasonal gig packing books for shipping over the holidays. She is super private and I'm not allowed to hear her play or sing or be privy to anything she has written, but she WILL watch coming-of-age shows on Netflix with me. Thank you, I'll take it.
Henry is as thirteen as thirteen years old can be. Dude. I'm 5'8" tall and he's several inches taller than I. His voice is already quite deep and yet is STILL cracking and changing daily. He codes and designs games and laughs at the kinds of things that adolescent boys find funny. I wouldn't say he's Beavis and Butthead level, but it IS a bit of a thing.... I'd say the 13 year old dude watchword is "Random" or maybe even "Silly," but I would not rule out "Gross."
I'm working on resurrecting myself here... I find that after 20 years of squashing myself to fit the needs of a growing family and get my day to days, and priorities taken care of, that I cannot recall some portions of "me." I'm betting that some are gone for good and "don't let the door hitcha on the butt on the way out," but some of who I am I think I really need back. I have a few years to track that woman down before a serious crash, but track her down I must.
