There are days...

Today was a rough day. Most of it was good, and then it just fell apart into something as a parent and spouse I'd rather not go through.

Of course, no details, that veil of privacy that I must respect.

I was stuck for something to publish, so I went in and started looking at pictures. Who doesn't love pictures.

I found some of M, when she was a newborn. So small, all cheeks and big eyes. It seems so far away from the girl she is now. She's so tall, so wild, so independent. She demands so much. She is always bringing stuff up from days ago, and I can just see how her brain is using all of the downtime it has just to process everything she sees. She saw my brother two weeks ago and recognized that he was wearing the same shirt as my dad, who she saw two weeks before. When she saw my dad tonight (dropping off gifts to the sick house) she asked about the "green man" shirt. Yet she can misbehave, and not know why she's in trouble. She is so grown up, yet still so little all at once.

I know one of the challenges of having a kid who is big for their age is that other people expect so much more for them than their age allows. The hard part, the part I didn't expect, is that I do it too. I do it because she's so big, because she uses such big words, because I resolved long ago not to talk down to kids. But she's only two and a half. She's just babe. If I think she's asserting herself now, thirteen is going to be hell. Some days, hell some hours, some minutes, I look forward to seeing just how she'll turn out, and some times I'm scared as hell.