Alison Hodgson

Expert on the etiquette of perilous times.

The beginning of the end of childhood

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Lydia was just asking Paul how Scooby Doo and the gang can afford traveling around to solve all those mysteries as they have no visible means of financial support. Who’s footing the bill for all that meddling?

You know your kid is growing up when she recognizes the need to suspend disbelief or rather, begins to simply disbelieve.

Today we walked into church arm in arm. It wasn’t that long ago that the only way we were able to was if I bent over and she reached up, but now we are almost the same height. Today I wondered how long it would be before I would have to reach up and she would need to bend down.

She gave us two years at most.

Oy!

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We decorated the tree this afternoon and evening.  It was a relaxed and lazy day.  We had ice cream for dinner and then Christopher made up a couple bowls of popcorn to munch on while they watched a Christmas video.  Lydia and Eden doubled up in one of the chairs to share a bowl.  I glanced over at them, Eden perched on Lydia’s lap, Lydia’s arm around her, patting her leg lovingly like I do and was struck by how sweet and sisterly they looked.
Lydia is only eleven, but at 5′ 5″ and gaining, she is looking more and more like a young lady and she has always been an old soul.  Eden is almost six and getting so big, but is still little and definitely the baby of our family.    At this stage the five and a half years between them is so vast.  Looking at them this evening I imagined them both grown, perhaps with children of their own, the years between them nothing at all.
I wanted to take a picture of them together, as they are today, a big and little sister, but Paul is away with our camera.  And then I remembered Photobooth and took the photo above.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2008/12/351/

Eleven

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The day of Lydia’s birth is one of the happiest of my life.  She was the bright spot in the midst of a long and dark depression.   I held her in my arms before the cord was cut and wept because I was so relieved that she was here and that my labor was finished.  Of course, in a whole new way, it had just begun.  
I am thinking about this as we navigate, awkwardly, this arduous time which is adolescence.
This picture is my prayer.
May she know that she shines like a light, that she is beloved and that I am always behind her.  Help me to be behind her.
Always.

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Well, Birdie turned a corner Monday.   Between not having to take a general math assessment and getting invited to go with a friend’s family to the football rally tonight she was more than happy.

A couple days ago there was a curriculum night at her school where her teachers explained what the class would be studying and opened it up for questions.  We had met her teacher at open house and Paul and I both liked her immediately.  Lydia loves her.  It was good to check in with her and to learn that she was telling Lydia the same thing we were: the point of school is to learn and that no one cares about her grades if she is working hard.  The math curriculum is different than one we used or even what she studying at her old public school.  It was tough walking through the loneliness and the academic angst with her.  I was having plenty of my own, “What were we thinking sending her back to school in the SIXTH GRADE?/I think I was a cruddy math teacher/mother/human being” angst.
And yet, at the bottom there was peace.  I forget, at times (like always) that following the path you feel compelled to travel does not guarantee ease.  
Tonight Lydia’s going to her friend’s house, Paul’s going to hang out with Christopher and Eden and I are going to have a date with Torey, Ren and Willa.  Ren has been breaking down lately longing for “those days where we saw each other every day”.  I told/warned Eden that Ren was feeling fragile and why.  She looked at me, “So am I!”  When I suggested that she give her cousin a hug she readily agreed, “And it’s OK if we hurt each other because we love each other so much!”
“Do you mean hugging each other so hard it hurts?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you can hug a little gentler than that.”  I told her.
We’ll see if she takes my recommendation.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2008/09/394/

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It’s been a long week.  Lydia started a new school too – sixth grade.  It hasn’t been easy being the new kid and being her mom hasn’t been a cake walk either.  I haven’t blogged, because it takes time getting up early, packing lunches, waiting for buses, driving Kindergartners to school, neducating homeschoolers, praying on the hour for lonely girls, rejecting plans to beat up would be mean girls and such.

We’re tired.
All of us are seeking comfort and rest in our own particular way:  Eden and Christopher are playing Star Wars Legos on the Wii, Lydia is baking and Paul and I are lounging on our bed laptops propped on our legs.
“Are we being terrible parents?”  I asked Paul.
He paused from his typing for a second to mumble, “No.”
He didn’t recommend taking the long view here, but it was implied.

https://alisonhodgson.com/2008/09/396/