Thirteen!!!!

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Yes, my firstborn turned thirteen years old today. She has partied all month, and I have to admit I'm ready for the party to be over! She started the celebration with a scrapbooking party on February 7 because one of her good friends, Ayana, was moving to Indiana and Briana wanted her to be able to come. The girls were so cute cropping and gluing and journaling. It made me miss my own days of scrappin'. She wanted this party to be a 'tea time', so we made blueberry scones, hot tea, and instead of a cake, she wanted a fruit pizza. Then the girls chatted and scrapped the day away. It's neat to watch girls grow up. I think Jenika (lower right) has been to every single one of Briana's parties since she turned six years old. If I were more ambitious, I would dig out pictures and scan them in so you could see the girls growing up together. . .sorry, not that ambitious! My family always gets together for the kids' birthdays, and I let my birthday child choose the meal. So last Saturday Briana chose chicken marsala and a Paula Dean strawberry cake. I think my family appreciated the girl's taste, because the meal was scarfed down in record time. And today we had a nice relaxing family time, just as she requested (although her little brother and sister have a horrible cold--fevers, cough, runny nose. . .the works). I'm still amazed that she's thirteen. I'm finding the responses to this stage of life interesting. For the last few weeks, up to and including today, people have been saying things like 'Uh, oh, she's almost a teenager' and 'Watch out when she's a teenager' and 'Now you have a teeny-bopper' and 'Are you ready for her to be a teenager'. Now, I'm not an experienced parent like some, but I've been reading this book, Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations by Alex and Brett Harris. Do you know that the word 'teenager' was not coined until 1941 (pg. 30)? The word 'teenager' has been around less than seventy years--the concept of adolescence only slightly longer. Compare this relatively short time to the history of the world, less than 10,000 years, and ponder what that means for a little bit. What do you think that means? And what do you think we can or should do about it?