Life Will Change

Six-year-old H said something to me completely out of the blue that made me have to leave the room in order to not burst out laughing.  In fact, I would have laughed anyway if I hadn't have been rushing to find a paper and pencil in my mess of a house so that I could scribble it down before I forgot it, which, given my ADD manner, caused me to not totally catch or forget the exact words she used at the end.

"When you're 31, 

life will change 

because I'll be older then

 and will help out 

like I don't do now."

This school year has not been the year for "help[ing] out".  It's been a year we never want to repeat.  (Although considering that Lil'S at age 2 is taking a blessed three-hour name most days of the week, I have a feeling that we will.)  In fact, most days it's been like pulling teeth to get H to make it through homework, dinner, and her bedtime routine.  However, we've suddenly seemed to have had a reprieve from this, whether H's starting to need less sleep, or life has just returned to some kind of "normal" since N arrived and family has been visiting.  I've had glimmers of my beautiful H, the one that seemed to have disappeared ten months ago when she stopped napping regularly.  One of the beautiful parts of her showed up in how well she will apply good things she reads to her life.  She and I read a story in this month's Friend magazine about two girls who helped take over their mother's chores after her hand was severely cut.  By the time her hand healed, the girls had gained great skills and were perfectly content to continue helping out.  I was about to type that suddenly H was helping out!  However, I think she was really starting to help out more on her own, so this story just helped strengthen her efforts to do so.  Maybe part of this change has been my willingness lately to have her read to me, instead of me to her, and to let her stay up a bit late in order to have more than 2 minutes of reading time.  I've been leaving the room closer to 6:30 most nights and occasionally as late as 7.  As late as those times have been, she certainly has been tired afterward, but not as tired as she was previously.  I wonder if, were we to get her to bed at 6 again, would she be able to make it through her week without her Tuesday afternoon naps?  

(The most obvious change is that she hasn't been fighting her patch as much.  I think she wore it for about a week without complaint upon my asking her to put it on.  What a blessing that has been!)