Six years old!!

Alison turned 6 years old yesterday. She's going to start first grade in a little over a month. In the past year she has completed a year of all-day kindergarten, started growing out her bangs, learned how to tap dance, started learning how to speak spanish, grew 3 inches, learned how to read, learned how to swim, and countless other things that I am forgetting at this particular moment. She told me her favorite subjects in school are math and science. She made new friends. She brought home report cards even the pickiest parents could be proud of (unless they are picky about handwriting, and let's face it, that would make us huge hypocrites).

Going to school changed Alison into a kid. A real, honest to goodness kid who no longer resembles a toddler in any way shape or form. She talks with her hands, just like me. She thinks that being a teenager is going to be the coolest thing ever. She draws complicated chalk drawings on the sidewalk that are more like stories than pictures. She loves building things with her legos. She still manages to amaze me every single day.

My biggest fear in raising Alison is that she has this huge potential, and I really don't want to do anything to damage what she could become. I want to help her develop into the amazing, complex person she is destined to be, and this is a very difficult balancing act. Lately I've been trying to teach her a lesson that is a very hard one for anyone to learn--you are responsible for your own happiness. You can't make people act in such a way that will guarantee it's affect on you will be positive. I hope she gets it sooner than I did.

She has affected our lives in an overwhelmingly positive way, and I thank God every day that he he gave her to us; this amazing, complex, smart, funny, beautiful little girl who is growing up so fast I can hardly catch my breath.