Growing up is Hard to do.

Here lately we have been so caught up in babies, Christmas, farming and then Ryan's birthday I feel as though time has continued on relentlessly.  Here it is February and Ayden is starting the second half of her kinder days.  I recently looked back through old pictures and saw Ayden's first day in August and she has changed so much.  Her face....looks older.  She is losing all her chubby cheeks, and is working on losing her first tooth. 

 She has been busy learning to read, add, subtract, learn presidents (which she can say all of them by the way), geography, history, music and most importantly her Bible.  We loves her school.  We love her teacher.  We love what they stand for and I'm so thankful she gets to go there to learn!  When Ayden gets home from school she plays.  She loves going outside, playing school, writing, drawing and being a Mom to her gazillion babies.

Looking though all her papers I saw this one and thought it was so cute.  I love her little drawings!

 I try not to lose sight of what all my kids are doing even when we are busy.  However, I think all parents probably feel as though they didn't get quite as many snuggles in that day as they should.  Ayden is getting older and with all the joys of being five also come the "hardships."  She has more attitude than one little body should.  She has never been disobedient and still isn't.  I'm thankful we get to experience each age "first" with her because it doesn't take much discipline to point her in the right direction.  Here lately we have had moments of breakdowns or sadness about what others will think of us.  What others will think of our hair or our clothes.  The first time she cried in the bathroom over how I fixed her hair I realized that we had reached a milestone that I wasn't quite ready for.  All kids even the ones who are told they are beautiful on a daily basis struggle with this.  It only gets worse when "others" become vocal about it.  We have always been careful about when we tell Ayden she is beautiful.  We don't tell her every time her hair is fixed and she has on a beautiful dress.  I tell her first thing in the morning.  When she wakes up messy hair and stinky breath. 

I'm one to think constantly about what to say and what to do with my kids.  Sometimes I feel like my brain is going a hundred miles a minute.  I think all Momma's are that way.  I think its how God wired us.  When trying to pick my words that morning so very carefully I realized something myself.  I asked her if she liked her hair.  She said yes and then I said, "Well what does it matter what others think then."  It's great this dialogue started with hair.  How we fix our hair is a choice.  It can't be sinful and it doesn't really affect others.  Other choices as my kids grow aren't so easy.  One day they may be tempted to sin.  They will be tempted. They will sin.  It doesn't matter how big or small the decision is what matters is how we think of ourselves.  I told Ayden that God thinks she is beautiful.  Not because her hair or because of her beautiful face which he did give her but because of her heart.  He loves that you obey.  He loves that you care for others.  He loves that you feel sad for others when they are sick or hurt. 

It's so hard to believe that sometimes.  We can physically see God cheering us on.  We can't see the smile that our obedience to his word brings.  Tye and I talked later and decided that growing up is hard to do.  Watching Ayden grow into a young girl is hard to do.  As much as I know her worth she doesn't yet.  Our job as parents is to teach her that.  To teach her that her worth is in God.  How do we do that?!
Pray. 
Teach her God's word, repeatedly tell her how much we love her and how much God loves her.  Parenting is hard to do and wow we have a long way to go.  I guess it never stops.

The moment I let worry consume me I flip over a school paper to see this doodled on the back.  It's our family of six and the cross underneath.  I'm reminded by HIM what's on her heart and I'm encouraged.