Can’t wait!

We’ve had a crazy, busy girl weekend this weekend, as Daddy was at the Atlanta Market. I have photos to post but had to “jot” this down tonight before the week got the best of me. McCanless, as you know, is my free-spirit, strong-willed baby girl. I have learned this weekend, however, she is not quite my baby girl any longer. She had a couple of “firsts” that must not be forgotten!

After a rockin’ Hannah Montana skating birthday party on Friday afternoon, and a dinner date with her friend Eliza, Eliza’s mom, sister, two brothers, Mary Clare and I…(yes, two adults and six kids and it was on the patio at Bizzell’s downtown during Renofest Bluegrass Festival) much to my dismay, she asked Eliza’s mom if she could spend the night. (I wasn’t dismayed at the spending the night part, but the asking part. My mother would have choked us if we did such a thing, and I thought I had instilled this in McCanless. Who knew I would really need to teach her this before she was five?) She loves to go to Eliza’s house. A house in the country, baby chicks, kids galore. Who wouldn’t?

I just knew I would get a phone call in the wee hours and have to drag Mary Clare out to the country to pick up my big girl. I even slept with the phone by my pillow, just in case. She did it, though. Her first friend sleepover. She stayed all night and when I went to pick her up, she and Eliza had already schemed decided that Eliza would come with us. Apparently, this begins way earlier than I remember. The duo came running out to my car with that look in their eyes. Completely convincing and nodding her head, McCanless said, “Mom, Eliza’s mom said she could come with us.” Oh, really. Then she whispered to Eliza, “Go ask your mom.” Off they ran. I didn’t have time to think, or stop them.

So off to lunch and the park we four went: Me, Mary Clare, Eliza and my pre-teen. We met up at yet another birthday party that afternoon and as I watched my McCanless with her friends I noticed that she is the same baby girl I have always known and adored, she is just growing up right in front of my eyes.

She is bossy, the ring leader. She is fun. She is a show-off. She loves to make her friends laugh, even if it means at her, especially if it is at her. She laughs very often. She is a leader. She is silly. She is sassy. She loves to be around lots of people. The more the better. She is confident. She loves to dance. Loves to dance. She dances and sings for her friends.

This morning before church, she became very angry with me because I asked her to put her dirty breakfast dish into the dishwasher. (She had just placed it into the sink, and I thought I’d throw in the extra task.) She immediately looked at me with wide eyes and a sour look on her face. (As if I had asked her to go jump into the lake.) She began to scream and pitch a fit…something about getting her hands dirty and touching that nasty spoon. The very one that was just in her mouth.

I told her she could ask me to do it for her if she didn’t want to get her hands dirty. Yelling, she replies,…”YOU do it….you are the mom…you get dirty…etc.” Calmly, I walked to the sink and began to rinse and load the dish. I knew better than to reason with her at this point.

A few minutes pass and she grew quiet. It was short lived, at least. Then a drawing shot across the kitchen floor coming from the direction of the playroom. It is a drawing of a red devil with horns and MOM written across the top.

So, I have received my first hate letter from McCanless. I think she will make a fine teenager, don’t you?

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