Meredith Carson... Across the Pond and Back Again...

So there we were in an average, over-priced hotel room while buckets and buckets of rain dumped down on the outside world.  We were just about to put on our bathing suits and head down to the unexceptional hotel swimming pool when my oldest daughter blurted, without thinking, "I don't even mind having a baby sister if I still get to go swimming with my Mom!" I wondered how long she had been waiting to say something like that.  Earlier that afternoon the two of us had climbed into the car and driven less than an hour away where we checked into a hotel and headed out to do some shopping.  She had hardly stopped talking since we left the house.  At one point she paused to take a big breath and then carried on telling me about everything important that happened in fourth grade, things I had never even imagined.   There weren't any toddlers to chase or sighing eight year olds to console.  All of my attention was focused...

I have this daughter who challenges me on a daily basis.  She sometimes shows me things about myself that I do not like.  She stretches me and makes me grow as a person.  She also makes me mad, makes me laugh, and makes me think.  Wasn't life easier when she just needed some milk and a nap?  I do love that girl, but we have our struggles.  Sometimes I am not perfect.  Sometimes I do not say the right words.  Should I simply overlook it when she wants to leave my house for school with a ponytail sprouting from her forehead like a unicorn horn while wearing her Dad's Panama Jack tank top from 1989 over a pair of tight sweatpants and snowboots?  Often I long for a rewind button; I know that some of our exchanges could  be infused with a little more motherly love and understanding, but truly she can not leave the house like that, right?  Enter the journal... The journal was Miss Smarty-Face's idea, and when she suggested it, I was im...