Riley

So, yes, I know I slacked way off with blogging. I said I was going to try for every other week or so and here it's been, well, a lot longer than two weeks. But hey, life gets away from us all. I guess I need to not make blanket statements like I'm going to blog every two weeks or I'm going to mop every Wednesday. Things just don't seem to happen that way, no matter what my intention is. Today, though I want to devote a blog to my lovely Riley-girl.

Riley is turning nine years old on Monday. She has grown so much, and I do mean grown...

I give you exhibit A

And exhibit B

See, I told you she had grown a lot. :) You hear all the time you are growing up and even as a young adult, about how fast time goes by. I remember when I was a kid thinking that my body clock must be off or something because time did not go by fast for me. Christmas always took forever to arrive and then time just d r u g by till summer break. Summer break itself felt never ending and idyllic. But then something must have happened to that faulty body clock of mine and pregnancy was apparently the trigger. All of a sudden, I went from days moving at a normal, easy-to-handle pace to the days flashing by so quickly I hardly had time to live through them! I seriously just found out I was pregnant for the first time, and now that child I conceived is NINE?!? And I have two other children too? Really?

Anyway, I wanted to actually talk about Riley, not the passage of time. :) I always thought girls would be easier to raise than boys would be. I mean I am a girl, so surely relating to another girl who is also the fruit of my own body would be a cinch. I, myself, was an easy girl to raise... *buffs nails against shirt* (and no contradictions from anyone who might know any different, let me live with my illusions) so surely my own daughter would be like me. Ha, yeah, that's not how things have worked out. I've now come to realize that I don't have to be a boy for them to be easy to relate to, at least at the stage my boys are at. I know there is every chance that they will pull a big switcheroo on me when they hit their teens and suddenly Riley will be the one I understand and can relate to and the boys will be mysterious aliens who happen to live in my house. But right now, the boys are easy to understand and predictable in their reactions to things.

Ok, so I don't really feel like Riley is a mysterious alien, but she very much did NOT inherit my personality, or even Paul's. She is full of emotion and drama and the illogic that kids (and some adults) can have. (I'm sure I also was illogical as a child but I don't remember that time so it doesn't count.) I love every part of her personality, even the parts that she is going to need to work on adjusting so she can survive as an adult, but, so here's my problem with that. She is only nine. Yes, I was just going on about how fast nine years went by, but really, that is still just a kid. Not even a tween or a preteen or anything like that, just a little girl. (I guess she's pushing the tween age, but she isn't there yet.) But my little girl is not little. She reaches my chin now. She is just very tall! She can't help that, but her size does make me sometimes think of her as being older than she is. That is my struggle and I fight it and try to remember that she isn't a teenager yet and can't be asked to be any more responsible or to act like anything except a child. It is a daily battle for me though.

One of my greatest desires is to have the kind of relationship with Riley that I had with my mom (only in reverse of course). I worry sometimes that we won't be able to develop that kind of bond because she is so different in the way she thinks about things and reacts to things. But my prayer is that our differences will just bring us closer together. Right now we are still very much in the role of parent/child where a lot of our relationship is still a mixture of instruction, discipline, encouragement and snuggles that kids need. But the time will come when she will begin to use that instruction and discipline she is receiving now to start making her own decisions and build her life experiences as she matures and is ready to begin making those steps. And that is when I hope our relationship will be able to change to more that of confidante and mentor with still some of that other stuff in there when necessary.

So I want to share a little bit about Riley right now, for her sake so that if she ever reads this blog someday, she'll know what she was like at this age and what I thought about her.

1. She is a sweet mixture of reserve and friendliness. She has a side to her that is nervous to talk to people she doesn't know or who she is seeing in an unusual setting (like seeing a friend from school at Wal-Mart). We are working on reassuring her that feeling uncomfortable in those situations is understandable but she needs to make sure she doesn't let that discomfort stop her from being friendly to others. She is doing a great job of making an effort with that. A new girl has moved into the neighborhood and started riding the bus with Riley and Jake. She even gets on and off at the same stop. She is Riley's age and everything. I told Riley to be sure and be friendly. After the first day, where all she did was smile at her, and the second day when she smiled and said hi, today, the third day for the girl to be at their stop, I watched as she and the other girl talked at the corner while waiting for the bus, and even lingered behind while the others got on as they talked together. I was so proud of her for reaching out to someone in compassion and in a gesture of friendship even when I knew she was nervous about doing it.

2. This little (big?) nine year old can draw like nobody's business. She is decent with things she is just drawing from her imagination, but you give her a picture to copy and she is really good at it. Especially people. She likes books from the library that have the cartoonish like set up (i.e. Diary of a Wimpy Kid but some are more elaborate with their drawings) and she'll copy some of the pictures from the book with more success than a lot of adults could probably do.

3. She is in the highest reading group in her grade. Riley loves to read and has recently discovered the Little House on the Prairie books, which is think is pretty cool. If she enjoys those a lot, I'm going to get her going on the Anne of Green Gables books. She has definitely taken after me with her love of reading and with her speed with it as well. She got one of the Spiderwick Chronicles books once and read it in a day. Speedy.

4. Riley is definitely moving out of the little girl stage of playing with dolls and toys (that I didn't feel like lasted very long) and wants to do bigger kid things like have a phone and a TV, but she also still does play with toys on occasion. She particularly likes these little miniature dolls that she will play with for quite awhile.

5. She is a wonderful big sister. Riley and Jake play so well together, with a minimal amount of bickering. With all of her tendency to want to act older, she really loves playing with her little brother who is still completely into toys. I've seen them play Barbies, G.I. Joes and all kinds of pretend games with each other. The two of them have their moments of getting on each other's nerves, but when I really think about it, that's not hugely common. She is great with Tyler too, but treats him more like she's his other mom than like a sister who wants to play with him. There are six years between them so that's not very surprising. I am glad that Jake has Tyler coming up to an age here where they will be able to really play together because he will miss Riley when she loses interest in playing like she does now.

There are many other things I could write about my beautiful, sensitive and imaginative daughter, but I'm going to stop there. She is a huge blessing to us and the thing I am the most thankful for about her is her tender heart to God. She was almost six years old when she accepted Jesus as her Savior and my thankfulness over that is so huge. But since then she is very open to correction in order to live more for the Lord. My prayer for her is that she will deepen her relationship with God as she grows and that she will believe in herself and in the power of Christ in her to do anything that she puts her mind to or that God puts on her heart to do. Happy birthday Riley! I love you, sweetie!