Eight will be Great

“Mommy, when I’m a big person and when I’m not teaching ballet or playing golf on TV, I want to take water and sandwiches to the hungry people.”

I giggled a little, imaging my sweet little girl delivering homemade sandwiches to people in Africa and other poor regions of the world (we had been talking about how there are many, many people in our world who are not as fortunate as us.)

I reached over and gave her back a little rub, “I think that’s a very nice idea.”

That’s my Honeybun, kind and caring and emotional as any person I’ve ever known. She feels so deeply that sometimes it’s impossible to lift her up from her worry or sadness.

But she is also growing up so quickly, before our very eyes. She is changing dramatically even from day to day and I hardly recognize the girl who turned 7 just one year ago.

And then today, she’s 8. Somehow, I’m the mommy to an 8 year old now.

8 years seems like an impossibly high number for the amount of time we’ve had her. I mean, it was just yesterday that I was crying over her first loose tooth and she was only beginning to walk and talk last week.

Yet here we stand, on the cusp of “growing up.” The big changes are coming and sooner than I’d like to admit or think about. My first baby is far from the giggling little girl who stole our hearts all those years ago and so many of the big kid traits are already creeping.

She is argumentative and defiant and stubborn. She is learning right from wrong in all the hard ways. But she is learning.

She has struggled with truthfulness the last few months, with making good choices and not always doing the things she desperately wants. She’s been working on her self-control and being the best Honeybun she can be. And it’s been hard for her. She gets herself down for the choices she’s made and mad at herself for things she can’t change, desperately wanting a re-do.

And today she gets it. Today marks the start of a whole new year of her life where she can be anything she wants to be. I hope she continues being kind and helpful to others. And I hope that her laughter comes back and she can see the beauty in her own joy and smile.

I want 8 to be great for her. For this to be not only the best year yet but also the start to a wonderfully happy life. And While most parents just want their children to be happy, I come at it from a different angle.

I want my children to find happiness in being good. I want them to feel good about themselves rather than me constantly giving them things to feel happy about. I want them to create their own happiness in life.

And my sweet little Honeybun is on the cusp of that. She is just starting to understand what true happiness is, where it comes from and how to get it (and it’s not M&Ms and more app time.)

She is 8 today and bigger and better than I could have ever imagined.