…Since I wrote about my daughters. This blog started out as a pregnancy blog with Skyler way back in 2007. It made the obvious transition to mom blog but I eventually got out of habit of updating it. Life got busy and crazy and then Layla came along and I just quit writing about this mom life with these two amazing girls. I tried transitioning it to a wellness/nutrition blog but I quickly got bored with that and there are a thousand others out there anyway. I had nothing new to say. With a full time job and husband and kids and dogs, finding time to write seems silly sometimes. Now that I have my artwork, I’ve been inspired to write about that, both to tell the story of this side of my life, but also to help market my work and establish an online presence. But I don’t want to get so focused on that and forget to document the phases of this crazy life.
Skyler is 12 going on 16, so it seems. While she’s in 6th grade which was elementary school to me, it’s at the middle school in her district, so it feels much older. She’s incredibly strong academically, and has taken an interest to engineering. She is multi-talented and driven, so I am intrigued to see where she focuses over the next few years. There’s plenty of preteen drama going on with the girls at school, to a degree that I can’t even fathom. I’m sure a lot of it comes from social media and the things they are exposed to more these days (Kardashians I’m glaring at YOU), but thankfully Skyler tries to stay away from it. Unfortunately her efforts to not get wrapped up in it have made her a target, since it bothers the girls that she won’t play their games. I am conflicted between telling her to give them a taste of their own medicine and just continue to ignore it. Mama Bear doesn’t like my girl getting messed with!
She’s incredibly independent which has its ups and downs. She’s perfectly happy to hangout in her room by herself, listening to music, watching a young adult drama series on Netflix, reading, drawing/painting, or FaceTiming with friends. But that also means we don’t see her much and have to be very intentional about time spent together. Sometimes in the evenings when everyone is winding down to head to bed, she’ll come down and start chatting with me, full of questions and stories of things going on in her life. Though I’m usually tired and ready to turn down, I cherish these moments and enjoy the in depth conversations we have. I realize that these changing times of her gaining independence and more separation from us is slowly preparing us for the day she no longer lives here under our care. My heart breaks at that thought.
Throughout this Stay at Home ordinance, we’ve definitely had more time together. It’s been a couple weeks and she’s starting to get really antsy. To breakup the boredom she’s been baking a lot, which is delicious but not good for me at all because I’m just eating my anxiety right now which includes everything she bakes! She also gets in these organization moods (thank goodness because I pretty much never have these moods), and has voluntarily cleaned the kitchen a few times, organized the pantry, the laundry room, and loves to keep her room spic and span. She’s been practicing volleyball skills in hopes of playing this summer, so fingers crossed sports are happening by then, and taking it upon herself to start working out. I had her take a Myers Briggs personality test and learned she’s an ENFP , which is quite different from Ronnie (INTJ) and me (ISFJ). I’ll have her take the Enneagram test next.
She has decorated her room eclectically, and has created a photo collage across one wall with mostly found images from my collections. She’s grown up in the world of digital photography so she doesn’t have much of her own photos that don’t live on Instagram. So many of the photos she has are of her as a baby and toddler. It always blows my mind when I go in her room and see all those images of that little stranger that seem like a lifetime ago. Back when she was silly and doing adorable toddler things. Before she could feel embarrassment or was concerned about how she looks. I miss that little girl sometimes, but I am also fascinated with the complex person Skyler is becoming and I’m so thankful to be her mother.