Growing pains

There are a few moments in parenting that are so quiet and normal and unspectacular that you almost miss them. But they happen and they're sometimes amazing.

This morning I was in the kitchen pouring my coffee and I glanced up. Susie had come in the room to put something in her backpack. She didn't look my direction and was only there a moment, but I could see the woman inside her. The woman's getting closer to the surface. When she was a baby I could only see the woman inside a little bit...in her eyes (and more in pictures than in "real life"). She had a really intense gaze. Still has it.

But now her proportions are changing and her body is starting to change a little and her face is losing that luscious baby fat (and gaining cheekbones!) and her hair is different and suddenly she's beautiful in a different way than she used to be.

And she's also so cool. I had printed out the excel spreadsheet I made for week one of my husband's diet (OCD? Nah!) and affixed it to the refrigerator door. She's fascinated by this diet and is participating...checking what he's supposed to have for breakfast and having it too. (Of course, I'm augmenting her diet because she needs more fat in her diet than we do.) Her interest and support of this new healthy lifestyle is really touching. And I don't want to dismiss it as "cute", because I think it's more than that. She's really participating in this as an equal, not as a little girl who puts on Daddy's shoes to be funny. And she ate brown rice and curry last night with no complaints.