Seven Is Halfway to Fourteen.

Happy 7th Birthday Lily!

I remember when I first learned that I was pregnant with Lily. We had just moved from FL to CA and we were living on a sailboat in downtown San Diego. I remember being so nervous about being a mom and thinking that I was crazy to be having a baby at 24. On October 26th 2003 we had our first little girl and named her Lily, after her Great Grandmother Lillian.

It's been seven years since she was a little newborn baby in my arms and celebrating her birthday this weekend really made me think about how fast time flies. On Tuesday, I will officially be a mother of a 7 year old and a 4 year old. There is not a baby bottle or diaper in the house. Both kids are able to play with the small Legos without the threat of choking and both kids are able to maneuver scissors in the proper manner. But there is something about Lily that makes me wonder where the time has gone... She's not a little kid anymore. She's almost a "tween" which means that she is halfway to being an official teenager!

Lily was the first grandchild on both sides of the family. She was so spoiled and is still to this day! I love that she's a unique kid with her own thoughts and ideas. She is logically smart and artistically inclined. She got the best of me and her dad. She walks to the beat of her own drum and she is fine with that. She is becoming a confident young girl who sticks up for her friends while staying level headed. She reacts well to change and typically keeps a positive outlook on things.

"Lily Billy" and her dad at her first hockey game.

Since Lily's birthday lands on a Tuesday this year, we decided to take her out for dinner with our close friends and then to her very first hockey game this past Saturday. Her birthday is so close to Halloween and various Fall Festival activities that she decided that it would be OK to have her birthday party in November instead of cramming everything in on one weekend. Like any other milestone a baby or toddler makes, this was the first time that I heard Lily make a thoughtful and insightful decision on her own. As a parent, we're so used to telling kids what the plan was and that was that. For the first time, I saw that Lily took the initiative to plan things out. Wow! It was like watching her take her first baby steps again. I wanted to capture it on camera...

The Russell Family Four!

Well at any rate we cannot control time. We can only let things happen and enjoy the good, cope with the bad and experience everything in between. Adults grow up and tell their kids funny stories about when they were kids and they will do the same when the time comes. We can only hope for the best for our children and once in a while give ourselves a pat on the back for being a good parent. Cheers to being seven!

"Growing old is mandatory; Growing up is optional."

- Chili Davis -