My little girl

My precious Katie is just five months away from her fourth birthday. The sweet babe who began my journey as a mama is growing up before my very eyes; it's such an incredible blessing to be a part of it!

Since life will be changing a lot here pretty soon, I'd been wanting to take Katie out for some special time--just the two of us. Once I have an exclusively breastfed baby again such opportunities will be scarce for a while. Yesterday (thanks to Ben staying home and spending the day with Benjamin), the opportunity presented itself.

Katie was really excited about going out with Mommy. I was excited too. I love that little girl more than I can even say.

We went to my midwife appointment together, stopped at Target, went out for lunch (Moe's--her very favorite), went to a local consignment store, and picked up milk at "our" farm. 

It was so interesting to sit at the table across from her at lunch, talking, just us. As we made our various stops, we talked about all sorts of things. As we went from place to place, I was struck repeatedly at how grown up my little girl is becoming--and I couldn't help but think about how one day soon, she'll actually be grown up.


For now, I am Katie's closest friend. She talks to me about everything. And I want it to stay that way. These days we talk about dolls, animals, farming equipment (what can I say? We live in the country.), and imaginary friends (and deeper things as they come up, of course).

I invest time and thought into those conversations in large part because one day, she'll have bigger, more important things to talk about, and when that time comes, I still want to be her confidant. I want her to know I have time to listen and talk about things that are important to her.

As we enjoyed our day out together, I couldn't help but be so thankful that I'm able to spend all my days with this precious little girl, developing such a sweet relationship with her. It was really nice to have some special time out with her before Baby arrives--but it's the day-in, day-out time with her that has allowed such a lovely relationship to blossom. Our "date" was just icing on the cake.

Thank you all for sticking around during this quieter season of my life. Since we are just days away from meeting our newest addition, I've been focusing most of my time and energy on getting ready for his arrival and savoring our last days as a family of four. We are so blessed!