Growing Up
When my third granddaughter Rhianne was barely three she was already acting like an adult-in-training . She loved to wear her Mummy's shoes, strutting like she was born knowing how to balance in heels, her feet dragging only because the shoes were far from the right size for her. No matter how many times I tried to explain to her, as she pushed her dolls around in her doll carriage, that real Moms don't wear their high heels when they take their babies for a walk, Rhianne simply didn't care to hear about it. She turned her nose up at me and continued pushing her way around the family room, stopping only to readjust the trailng scarf wrapped loosely around her neck.
She was always eager to talk to anyone willing to listen and periodically she would stop to sit and chat and play with the blue veins on my hands, pulling them up and watching them fall back and then state that I must be very old, and then toddle off again, into her own little world. On occasion, she would walk by and lift up her shirt and I would laugh and tell her that I could see her belly button. She then would stop and lift up my shirt to make sure that I had a belly button too. Sometimes when she was feeling particularly close, she would announce that we were friends forever but sometimes, when she was feeling particularly out of sorts, she would declare that she and I were not friends anymore. Her need to exert her opinions and individuality constantly made me aware that she was definitely her own person and I was glad that she had such a strong character, even if it would need to sometimes be tamed along her life journey from babyhood to toddler to pre-teen.
As she grew more into herself, leaving behind her babyish looks and jumping right into toddlerhood, I was amazed by her ability to watch and learn, and mimic the actions of the adults around her. She would play dress up constantly, and repeat the words and conversations she had heard, always placing them in the right context in her playtime scenarios. And all the while she would wear her high heeled shoes - to day-care and/or any family function she attended. She even argued the need to wear them in the winter snow.
While she took such care to become part of the 'adult' world around her, I so desperately wanted to keep her young and innocent forever. I didn't want to reach the time when she would give up her pretend existence and her high heel obsession. I wanted her to stay who she was - idiosyncracies and all. I wanted to continually be able to witness the times when she was so clearly amazed by the world she could hardly contain herself. I wanted to play games with her forever. I wanted to always fall into her contagious smile and hear her adorable giggle. She brought such a free-spirited happines into my life - and filled even my worst days - with a grandmother's joy.
I continue to watch the changes in her as she is now in her pre-teen years, and I can't think of a more amazing gift than her existence, particularly after her very traumatic and precarious medical beginning. I am now anxious to see the paths that she will choose to travel along her life journey because if who she is now is any indication, she's on her way to becoming someone very special, high heels and all!
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