She's 6!

This girl turned 6 on April 4. I asked her what kind of birthday cake she wanted and she requested my Lemon Rosemary Olive Oil cake. It's the only recipe I've ever tweaked enough to call my own and it turns out it is her most "preferred" (I keep hearing her use the word "prefer") cake and well, that just made my day.

A couple of weeks after her birthday, and the hospital stay, and all the craziness that ensued in the month of April for our family, we finally had a little get together of her friends for a play date party at Fuller Park.

 I loved that she and her friends devised some version of a game they must have learned at school. It didn't really make sense--the person who was "it" would shout out "Midnight!" and the rest of the group would march 12 steps and tag the "it" person--and that was it, over and over again. But they were having a great time and it involved all the kids, which is a great feat at a birthday party in a park.

Alan was the only boy at the party. I love Alan. He didn't care that he was the only boy. And he's polite. And kind.

 The final event of the day was a climb on the climbing tree at the edge of the park.

It also marked the turning point of the day. Upon leaving Isabella had a very difficult meltdown. She was having so much fun and I pulled her out of it because the party was over and we had to pack it in and head home. I'm not sure I handled it the way I should have. Our family had had a few very difficult weeks and I think she felt more stress than I realized. At the same time I had to teach her that it wasn't ok to act how she did.  I think parenting is the hardest thing a person can ever do. It feels like a constant balancing act of setting boundaries and having compassion and more often than not I feel like I am failing at my job--but not in a low self-esteem way--more like a refiner's fire way.  Rearing young children exposes every weakness you have with the express purpose of making you look at that weakness so you can overcome it ( or try to).  I think that makes parenting very hard-- and completely worth the experience. And this concludes my op/ed piece on parenting. Thankyouverymuch.