My Mads.......

I thought it fitting since I gushed over my son yesterday and his senior year, yikes;-) that I highlight my girl too......Gabe's pictures were so emotional.....he looked so handsome and grown.....and all I could see as he sat there was that tiny boy....the one from long ago.....and it was all hard to believe........and Mads is growing so fast too....and I am wise enough now to know that I will blink and she too will be embarking on her senior year.......so I am hunkering down.....desperately trying to slow down time......she is so wise and strong.....and deep.......she deeply feels and gets such a read on the stuff that goes around her.....and I so wish I could have protected her from some of what she has had to go through in her 8.5 years.....but we just can't do that for our children always......our lives are our own.....and our journeys unfold as they will.....and I am so proud of how she handles all the challenges that come.....never shying away from them.....but facing them head on....and articulating them so well......she tells me all of it, all the pieces of her life, and I am so grateful she has a place to lay some of her heavy burdens down.......and I will keep those lines of communication open, so she can keep me in her loop as she grows, and her life takes on so many changes....and I was thinking of change the other day......I have just experienced another run of lots of change.....and as humans it can rattle our cage sometimes......we like things to feel predictable and steady, and then change comes and forces us to move.....to change with it.....and my girl's life is sorta in flux like that, experiencing lots of change.....she will also be going into an older class in the fall in school, and be challenged some within that.....It will ask more of her.....and she will be stepping up academically, and as it pertains to peers.....and I have no doubt she will rise......she always does.....and she seems well adapted and mentally healthy despite the challenges her life has had so early on.....but I am mindful and concerned some about all of what she has gone through will affect her one day.....she was so little when Covid struck our world.....I think 2.5 or 3.......and then when she was 4 almost 5 her dad left, and all of that happened and yeah well she has had a lot in her little life......and I can see the strength it has brought forward in her.....she is fierce....and I suppose those things either strengthen you, or show your cracks....she has a warrior spirit which I am so grateful for ......and while I am grateful that is her inherent spirit.....I also want to make sure she has a soft place to be in......where she doesn't need to fight or be stronger than she wants to be.....that is something that resonates with me, I have always had to be stronger than I wanted to be, and now the same has found her.....and she has never felt like a child to me....she has felt like an old soul, a grown up since she was tiny....and I feel we all forget that sometimes with her.....myself included.....and I guess it is in my mind to enter this school year remembering that......and doing my best to soften the things she is facing where I can and offer my support and love to her every day! She is half of my heart indeed, and one of my greatest blessings on this earth.....she is my ride or die, my bestie, one of my favorite people to hang with and I am so blessed. She was my late life baby.....having her at 40....and is part of my drive to continue to feel young, and keep up with her:) Today we head to my classroom and get it going, and I have some group coaching tonight.....and am feeling more settled amid my to do list getting crossed off, one by one! Happy Thursday:)