all the kids are doing it

Just a minute ago, Sophie, my pretend child, walked out the door. By herself, heading home. Now, I'm sure some of you are saying, "Hell, the girl's almost 12 - why is this blog-worthy?" (And I am quite sure some of you are also asking "why is this blog worthy?" And I say, "worthy of what?") But she's not ever walked quite that far alone (and really, she's not going all the way home, her mama is meeting her part way). It's not really so far - 5 long blocks - but the train tracks run diagonally between our neighborhoods and there's a construction site for a big, stupidly overpriced set of condos she has to walk around. The child has been blessed (I'm sure it feels like cursed to her sometimes) with a bounty of adults to parent her. Even though her mama works full time, she's never really had to do much by the way of spending time without an adult she trusts within shouting distance. There's her mom, and her step dad (who would do pretty much anything she wanted) and her dad and her step mom and me. So there's a lot of us. And she gets scared of things pretty easily. I am only slightly embarrassed to admit I secretly followed her part way. Not far! Really! I just walked around the corner, so I could see her when she got to the top of the hill where the construction is. She looked so tiny from that far away, with her giant backpack and her fiddle in one hand. Apparently, she made. I just called to be sure. Quit laughing.

In other news, I finally got it together to remember not only to take my camera to school, but to *use* it.






Thanks for the buckle frame, cho-girl.