8 years

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Originally uploaded by gennabby.

My baby girl is 8! She is brighter, more funny and cute than I expected. Her facial expressions reveal deep emotional understanding, and her questions do the same. Sometimes she is quiet; I know there are questions and thoughts bursting in there, but there is a reserve too. Not sure why. Other times she is a flood of words, and I wonder how her mind does what it does. She is tender with her brother; she is little girl and young woman at the same time; she loves me fiercely and can be so frustrated with me, though she respects me too much to let any major anger or disrespect fly. Long may that last! She is truly defenseless when it comes to her daddy's words, and what a blessing that she has a daddy who adores her and protects her heart and sees her for the beautiful person she is.

I can no longer describe her with just a few adjectives. She is changing--still bubbly, still sometimes shy, still curious, articulate, sensitive, passionate, forgetful, impressionable, trusting, and kind. And then there's more--but just what that is I can't say, and it changes with circumstances and with new information. Her moods have more heft and information behind them; they are no longer whims, like when she was two. No longer pure reaction to want or need.

I'm ambivalent about all of this, because I miss the simplicity of being able to meet her needs. She is fast outgrowing my ability in that department. But I love that we can share things we couldn't before. I can earn her respect, and she mine. And we can practice unconditional love and forgiveness too. I guess the relationship is becoming more complicated and full of potential for deep connection beyond the hormonal, biological super glue that has bonded us for all these years. I can't get the same high from sniffing her head, I'm not permitted to get the boogies from her nose, sometimes I'm invited to help make fashion choices, and I'm not there during her school day hours. But when she is asleep, I sometimes kiss her soft cheeks and see how little she still is. We're approaching real challenges and heartbreaks and changes (along with awesome experiences and connections), and I feel like I am 8 years old myself, scared and wanting someone to tell me "how things are." I don't want my existential crisis to be hers, and I try to give appropriate answers to questions that are too hard for me now. Had she asked me six, eight, ten years ago, I would have had more articulate things to say--maybe I would have been confident and wrong, or right. I don't even know. But now, my answers are more raw, more certain that we have to trust God because we are not in control of everything--and we don't want to be either. I am careful to keep my major doubts and fears to myself--those are not her crosses to bear. And when the time comes, if she wants to talk about the strangeness of growing up, becoming a mom and/or just becoming and figuring out that your youthful confidence takes some major hits along the way--when the day comes she faces suffering, then maybe some of my own trials and lessons learned will come in very handy. But, thank God, she is eight and has no reason to encounter anything beyond what we hope is a good balance of real, protected (but not too much) life.

Abby makes things vibrant with color. She is beautiful energy and delight and things that stretch the people around her to become more human, more real. She is the best eight years of anything I can imagine.