The past 24 hours have highlighted just how fast my children are growing up. Last night the 16 year old had her first real date. While, I am sure some people reading this are saying, really, she is just now having her first date? Others are probably saying she should have waited until she was 18. Regardless of other’s opinions on my children, I think it’s a fine age to have a first date. They had fun going to dinner and a movie. Of course, Dad & I ended up meeting them at the Baskin Robins before the movie since we were over in that vicinity.
There were a couple of things we noticed during the ice cream that made us very happy: 1) she didn’t change how she acted. She was the same smart, goofy, crazy young lady at Baskin Robins in front of her date, as she was at home and around her friends. This is an awesome thing and it tells me that she is comfortable with who she is as a person and doesn’t feel the need to change that to impress someone else. 2) Her date was polite, a little on the quiet side, but that could have had something do with Dad giving him looks too. He treated her like a lady. Brought her roses, bought her meal & her movie ticket, (Dad bought ice cream), and didn’t expect anything more than her company. He was a credit to his parents, & they should be proud of him.
It was definitely a bittersweet moment. On one hand, she is becoming a wonderful young lady full of talent and promise, on the other this is my baby. Of all my children, she is the one most like me and I know that this is the beginning of the end of childhood. Now, it is time to start acquiring skills that she will need to survive and thrive as an adult. Definitely growing up and of course, I’m not ready.
This morning was my indication that my 7 year old is growing up entirely too fast for my liking as well. He spent the night at my sister’s house last night and this morning I received a text from him off my sister’s phone. Keep in mind that the child does not have a cell phone, nor would I even contemplate it until he gets older. He doesn’t get to play on mine either. With the exception of my bedroom, there are no TV’s, computers, gaming systems etc, in the bedrooms of my house. Time is limited for gaming, TV, and computer time, there are other skills to learn that don’t involve electronics…you know, like how to cook, clean, and do laundry when you don’t live near Mom anymore.
So receiving a text from my 7 year old startled me. We had a conversation about how silly I was all the time. His first few texts were pretty good on the punctuation and spelling. Then his attention started to wander and well you know what happens when a 7 year old gets bored. They start getting silly. Seems like yesterday we were protecting him from anything and everything because of the eczema & asthma, now it’s just a side note in his life. He still has both but it doesn’t dominate it anymore. My how times have changed.
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