Parental pride

*Note: I started this post on Sunday, February 23. Sometimes it takes a while to get things done around here!

I think being a parent means being impressed and proud that your child can do things that other people don’t really care about. But the thing is that this very same little person is doing something that they couldn’t do even a week ago. And since kids are always developing and growing, the amazement at their growth/change is pretty continual. So this is one of those posts where I am amazed at my daughter and it is perfectly OK if you are not also enthralled :-)

Earlier this evening Maren drew a picture. It looked basically like every other picture that she draws, but then suddenly she started writing, and wrote an entire sentence. It looks like this:

The writing, in case you have trouble reading it, is this:

KoHSku
Frum
Mare
N
TU

IAMH
APETHE
TYUOL
I
V
T
F
O
R
SUHSALO
NGTIM

Translated, it says: To Koshka, from Maren. I am happy that you lived for such a long time.

I am amazed and impressed for so many reasons. First, she is independently trying to write entire sentences, which she could not do last week. Second, she is handling death/grief/loss really maturely. She seems to understand what death means, and expresses how she feels about losing Koshka very openly. She does not have a super good handle on expressing or labelling all of her emotions (about a week ago she was yelling and screaming at me through tears while stomping and hitting the air saying “I AM VERY HAPPY!,” because I dared to suggest that she was angry). But at four years old using words to express any feelings seems good.

Maren is one amazing kid, which can be hard to remember through the day to day difficulties. She is definitely four years old, and is what some people call a “spirited” child - meaning that she is not really a go-with-the-flow, mellow kind of person. Also, she talks almost constantly and does not like it when you are not listening (like when Jeff and I are trying to talk to each other). So it is good to notice that through everything she is kind, caring, super smart, and sensitive. I sure do love my little kiddo ❤️