Growing Up

The other night Rosalie offered to help do dishes after dinner. She really took her job seriously and frankly she was more thorough that I usually am with those pots.






Rosalie is also often hard at work taking care of Baby (this is the stuffed animal formerly known as Bear). We had to get Baby a "chew toy" because she was teething, and also she needs to be fed, tucked in, doctored, and played with. I mentioned, "Taking care of a baby is hard work." And Rosalie said: "It is...It is..." She was quite grave about it.

Being a big kid means that you can make important decisions that might not have even occurred to you before: For example, she now has opinions about her hair--she wanted it cut shorter so that it would stay out of her eyes. Good point! I appreciate the practicality of her reasoning. So we went in and did it this weekend. It suits her very well, in our opinion.





Today she doing her solo visit to a school to possibly attend next fall. It's a small place that's only a few blocks away from our house and it runs from Pre-K through 5th grade. When we visited for our family tour last November I think we were all fairly in love with it. After the tour Rosalie asked when she could go back. This place is a learning heaven.

One of the times that I visited on my own, everyone in the school went to a nearby park to set off handmade rockets that each kid in the school had designed. It was impressive to me that no matter how "successful" each rocket was, the whole school still "OOOHED and AAAAHED" enthusiastically for each and every launch. Another afternoon when I dropped by to pick up a copy of the application, there were a bunch of kids and adults in the hallway surrounding some young chickens that had been hatched on campus. The school's administrator (who was holding one of the chickens) apologized later to me for the chaos that day. "Are you kidding me?" I said. "That was so cool."

So I hope she's having fun this morning. I got emotional after dropping her off. Even though it is a small and nurturing place, it is still larger than Berry Patch, and it is a sign that our little girl is growing up.