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Mothering & Milestones

mothering and milestones

It’s been a while since a new milestone was hit around here. Or, at least, it sort of seemed that way with kids that are almost seven and thirteen. No new words, no first steps, no bedtime rituals to master … .

But I realized this past Mother’s Day though that Stella is pushing forward into new milestones. She often stays up past her mom’s bedtime (lame as it might be), she now listens to the news, and she makes her own lunches and does her own laundry. With each day, she becomes more and more independent. And her milestones have less to do with me, and everything to do with her own choices.

So whether I like it or not, it would seem that I’m mothering in new territory here. Perhaps you’ve experienced this with your kids already? There are a lot of “first steps” that don’t get documented in the baby book.

Like the first time you watch an “adult” movie together and bawl at the tragic ending. Stella recently asked me to watch Titanic with her. I hadn’t seen it since it was first released in 1997. Wow, I had forgotten how emotionally wrenching that movie was! (And romantic.)

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Or how about the very first Mother’s Day where your child does the breakfast, rather than Dad making it and pretending that the kids did it? This past Sunday, Stella cooked pancakes for the very first time all by herself. They were so delicious!

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Perhaps even more personal for me, since I’ve always been so involved with reading, is when you can start to exchange books with each other. After I read The Fault in Our Stars, I shared it with Stella and I think we both pulled different meanings from it, but enjoyed it equally. For my Mother’s Day present, she drew a picture of the characters for me.

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While the flurry of baby milestones may be well behind us now, this new mothering territory can be just as momentous. And I like it.

I like it a lot.

Comments

  1. Chantal says:

    I love it too! And now I am off to get my 13yo to start making his lunches! 😉

  2. Brenda A says:

    Ahhhh, all ages and stages have their pros and cons, don’ they? Sounds like your biggie is on the right track to independence. Great job, Mama.

  3. This is a post I can relate to.

    the teen years get a bad rap. I think if we embrace these years & allow our kids to do the same, we will enjoy them together. so far so good at my house.

    and also, your daughter is a freaking rock star.. always has been.. always will be!!

  4. I still miss the baby and toddler years, but I love getting to know my children as real people with their own thoughts and personalities. And I love the book thing too – Eve and I went to the craft show together a few weeks ago and we walked past a pretty older woman with an oxygen tank and Eve elbowed me and whispered “she looks like a seventy-year-old version of Hazel Grace Lancaster!”

  5. Ahhhhh! She’s so grown up! I can’t even imagine.

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