Merry Christmas 2011

We have a 5 year old (more on that later!) and a 2 year old.  Christmas is awesome!  I love the holidays...especially since having kids.  My memories of holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas (and Easter and 4th of July and Labor Day and etc) are of lots of family, lots of relaxing and playing games.  I was thinking this past Thanksgiving that next year I want to go home for the holidays.  Home being the place my parents live, a place I have never lived but visited.  Then I realized a large part of me wants to go because my mom does all the work and I can sit on my butt.  Sorry mom.

Riley is 5 years old

Five feels huge to me.  It feels like she crosses over from toddler to child.  Like she is now a little girl.  Too big for baby toddler stuff.  And yet just barely old enough for kid stuff.

I am not sure why 5 years old feels like this.  There's really nothing magical that starts at 5.    She hasn't started kindergarten yet, she already in little girls' clothing (4-6x) and she's not ready for PG movies.  Yet something about this seems monumental.  We have made it through...err enjoyed 1/2 a decade together.  And my "baby" is moving onto little girl interests including little girl opinions.  But even that is not huge, Riley's pretty much had her own opinions since she turned 2.  

More and more though, it is all too clear that she will continue getting older and growing up and there's really nothing I can do about it.  We watched a slideshow of Riley when she was just born and she says "Wow, look at my hair and my skin.  I look so different compared to now."  She really wants to make sure I understand that it's COMPARED to how she looks now.  In case I didn't get that.