One wish.

Our baby girl turned eight last week.

Reflecting on this down-right momentous day, I confess that our baby is growing up. Do you know how I know? Well, it's an easy deduction. Let me illustrate:

How you know your little girl is growing up

* Her favorite colors are blue, green, and brown--not pink

as was the norm just a few short years ago.

* As you are walking around the store, you look down and realize you are accidentally wearing her brown flip-flops--and they fit just fine.

* For her birthday, she asked for new books and a pack of gum. Not one toy necessary.

* Sometimes you get in back-and-forth arguments with her, as if you are sisters, instead of mother and daughter--and your husband has to pull you out of your tween flashback and back to the fact that you are the mom.....Oh ya, sorry.

* When completing the Student of the Week poster for class, her answer for "If I had one wish in the world, it would be...." was

"that there would be a medasine for all the sick people and no one would go to the hospitel."

She discusses how she might want to change this answer because all the other kids in her class completed that same sentence with "a million dollars."

But everyone might laugh at me.

You know what? It is always, always, always okay to be different if you are choosing something good.

Then she cried. And decided to leave the poster as it was.

{Not to discredit those children for their grand wish... a whole lot of good can be accomplished when one has a million dollars...in fact, I myself have several great ideas....}

* She gets upset with me at dinnertime because she is not allowed to help cook on the stovetop. I have just started letting her chop fruits and veggies {with supervision} and that is currently the closest to catastrophy that I will allow.

*She wakes up to her alarm, showers, dresses and does hair without prompting. {We're still working on the bed-making, however.}

* She gets teary when we talk about her approaching baptism day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time to blow out the candles:

Can I make eight wishes, since I'm eight?

Uh...hurry, just one, the camera's about to die....

I make a wish too.

Stay little.

Nuts, I just told you, now it won't come true.

Curses! It's all this tell-all-blog's fault.