-The way he looked at me and said: mama, I pway wain? He cocked his little head and gave me the dimple smile, just hoping I’d say yes. Sure bubs, I said. Go play in the rain. He took off outside, running and jumping and kicking a soccer ball in the pouring rain. After a bit he came in. You wet enough yet smoosh, I asked? He patted his shirt, his shorts and his cheeks before saying: no,  I pway moar wain and running off again. All boy. This kid is all boy. He likes to be dirty. He like to throw balls. Play with trucks. Run in the rain. I adore him.

-The way she comes in at 2am. I hear her coming from down the hall. (Oh the joys of being a light sleeper.) She comes in my room, lifts up the cover and sneaks in. She gets as close to me as possible, some nights even lifting my arm up over her. I listen to her breath. I wait as she falls back asleep. I kiss her head and play with her hair. I smell her shampoo mixed with the smell of little girl. She won’t always want this. She won’t always want me. She will one day decide she is too big to come into bed with me at night. For now? I enjoy it.

-We went and played mini-golf, just the two of us a few weekends ago. She kept writing down one less number for herself than she should have. Most days I won’t let her cheat. I know for her, being called on it, is generally the way to go. Her competitive nature gets the best of her. That day though, I let her cheat. That day, I played worse than I would have on purpose. We laughed and told each other jokes. I watched her watch the teenage girls in front of us play. I watched her listen to their conversations. Watched her watch them joke around with each other. I silently thanked them for being seemingly nice, polite, well behaved girls. When Morgan said on the way home, when I’m big, I’ll be like those girls, I said, yes my love, I’m sure you will. Then I stopped and bought her a Slurpee at 7-11. Just because. At the check out, since she didn’t ask, I offered to buy her a bag of Silly Bandz. Just because.

I admit, I stole this idea from my friend Emily at Wheels on the Bus.

I really wish I was still in the mountains. We drove up there on Friday afternoon/evening. I went and took Morgan out of school an hour early, mostly to make it easier on her father when he picked up Bailey. See, we decided to just not tell any of the kids that I was doing this. It did make it easier for all involved. The look on her face, when I told her why I’d come to get her early? Priceless.

It was a five hour drive; through: rain, sleet, hail, snow and a pretty impressive thunder and lightening storm. Oh and the fog was insane. I tend to have issues on mountain passes. However as we climbed up to the major one we had to drive over, it was so foggy, I couldn’t see over the edge of the mountains. It made it easy to pretend I was just driving on any random highway.The roads were just wet, so it wasn’t ever a problem. I just had to drive slower than I normally would have. It was only a four hour drive home.

Morgan talked pretty much the entire way up there, which was no different than any other waking second of her life.

It was interesting, but the farther I drove, the more relaxed I got, despite the insane weather. I am pretty sure I needed this trip as much as my girl did. Maybe more. We had fun, drove around the entire town (Which only has two major intersections. Major being, one three way stop sign and one four way stop sign.) and saw a ton of the outer areas as well. It’s a ski resort town and we were staying in a family members vacation home. Their vacation home? I could fit my house into it twice. It was gorgeous. Breathtaking views, out of every single window. There was a hot tub on the deck, where we spent a bunch of time.

We played a cut throat game of Monopoly, where I realized that my kid cheats as much as I do. I finally let her win, not because she or I cared who won, but just to end the game already. We played for two hours on Friday night and by hour three of the same game on Saturday, I was just over it.

We ate out. I let her have more candy and treats in three days than she normally has in two weeks. We sat in the hot tub and talked for hours. She told me silly jokes and I told her silly stories about when she was a crazy toddler. We discussed the reality that is our life. The fact that her dad and I aren’t getting back together. Which sucked. That conversation just sucked. I’ll just leave it at that. We took turns reading a book I’d downloaded onto my Kindle. One she’d been wanting to read. We took six walks. We met tons of nice people.

Everyone we came across was friendly. Too friendly. I only say that, because I could seriously see the draw of living up there. Which scares me a little. I am the last person who could ever make it in a town of 2,000 people. I am the last person who could survive 7-8 months of winter. After this past weekend? I can see the draw. I can see how it would be a great place to raise my kids. I have mentioned I’m crazy, right? I mean, there is no Starbucks in that town. Or a Target within 200 miles. Or any single fast food restaurant. None. At all. I’d have to learn to cook to live there.

I’m not ready to be home. I didn’t honestly want to come home yet. I have tons of things planned this summer, which is a good thing. Because I, like my daughter, don’t really like the reality that is my life right now. All I can do though, is keep making baby steps and moving forward. I’m finding that weekends spent elsewhere, tend to help with this.

And that’s what I know. Well that and the fact that I didn’t sleep well the entire time (Hard beds. impressive lightening storms at 3am. Sleeping with a snoring child.) and my brain is still on vacation. Which is why it took me until 11am to remember that neither of my best friends were going to be working, or online today. Also why I went to put gas in my car this morning and parked on the wrong side. Which is awesome, considering I’ve owned this car for nearly five years now.

My brainz? They are still on a mountain somewhere.

She’s always done things her way, in her own time. Generally earlier than most kids too. She was walking at the same age, her younger siblings were just getting the hang of crawling. She spoke in complete sentences by 14 months old, where my other two were content to point, sign the words for more and milk and say quack at the ducks, at that age. People used to ask me if she was a dwarf. No, I’d say, she’s just advanced. Gifted. Special. Choose your pick of words and feel free to roll your eyes. I would too, if anyone else said it about their one year old child. Didn’t make it any less true though.

At two years old, we knew she had ADHD. It’s one of the many challenges facing us with her. One that we’ve learned to deal with pretty well in the last three years. There were a few years there where it was extremely hard, but we’ve come a long way. She’s come a long way. Some of that is age, some of it time, some the Adderall she takes every day. I don’t and won’t apologize for that.

The other major challenge in being her parent, is balancing her intelligence, with her…well I’ll call it social immaturity, maybe? I don’t know it that’s the right wording, but it’s what I’ll use. Not to say she isn’t a natural born leader, nor that she doesn’t have a ton of friends. Or even that she is lacking in social skills. Just that her intelligence makes it where she can understand things way beyond her age level, but she can’t really handle the knowledge. She has a high IQ. If I told you her IQ, you’d swear I was lying. Even people who know her are sure I’ve made it up. Mostly because only a handful of people will ever know someone with this high of an IQ. She can comprehend more than some adults. But she’s still eight and a half years old. Being able to handle change and being able to deal with the things she knows? Well it’s harder for her to deal with that, then it is for her five and a half year old sister.

My kid? She’s an enigma. She’s amazing. She’s special. She wants to be a Supreme Court Judge one day. If you ask her why a Supreme Court Judge, instead of a regular judge, she’ll tell you, well the Supreme Court Judge, always gets the final word. She’s sweet, loving and kind. She adores animals. She’s artistic and creative; writing stories that always delight me, because I love to hear what’s inside of her head. She’s smart, athletic, funny and extremely bossy. She likes things her way. She’s weird. She does math problems, that she creates herself, for fun. She can play Majong for hours, but can’t sit still in her chair for dinner. She’s an absolute joy. She’s also my hardest child. She’s never been what one would call easy. Never will be either. I can picture myself watching her one day spouse roll his eyes at her, saying what can I say, she’s just her.

She’s anxious about changes, always has been. She doesn’t like small changes, much less big ones. This is the kid, I had to give a run down of her entire day too, each day at breakfast, for the first seven years of her life. You will brush your teeth, find your shoes, we’ll go to school, you’ll read, eat lunch, blah, blah, blah. On and on and on. Just to make her feel more secure. Changing her cereal used to take two weeks to talk her into. We had to start talking about anything major weeks or months in advance, just to help her transition. It didn’t always help. We taught her relaxation techniques as a four year old, which helped in some ways. She still, at eight, wears days of the week underwears, just because it’s an order thing and it makes her happy. She’s a little OCD.

Out of my kids, she wasn’t the one I thought would be easy to deal with, in regards to the divorce. She’s taken it surprisingly well. Her sister became needy and stopped eating for weeks and was prone to crying at absolutely nothing for months. Her brother became needy and whiny and very tantrumy at everything. They both still sleep with me at least half the night when they are here. She became helpful and easy…or well easy-ish. She started doing more around the house, to help me. She told funny stories to cheer me and her sister up. She helped her dad with her siblings when with him. She read stories to Harrison, to entertain him in the car. She seemed to be fine. To be handling things okay.

Then a few weeks ago, the night before I left for my vacation, she had a major tantrum. The likes of which, I hadn’t seen since she was five years old. One that started in a parking lot and ended three hours later, after she’d screamed and then sobbed herself out. She threw things, she hit the wall, it was bad. It took me a long, long time to calm her down. At her dad’s house. The night before I left for vacation. Fun times. The next day, she told me on the phone, she didn’t know why she did it. I kinda figured that I did.

Since then, she’s been full of attitude. Back talking me. Whining non-stop at her dad. She’s mean to her sister and rude to just about everyone else. She’s crying at nothing and is prone to screaming fits, making me wonder if she’s suddenly become a 15 year old with raging PMS.

She’s stuffed her feelings. Five months of stuffing her feelings is now barely staying inside. She’s angry and sad and really, a big mess. Frankly it is worrying me to death. I’ve made an appointment for her to see someone this week. I’m also going to take her out of town this weekend, even though it’s her dad’s weekend. I think she needs some one on one time. Some time to talk. Some time to be. Maybe then, she’ll start to let some of those feelings out a  bit at a time, before they eat her up.

This is where parenting gets hard. Sure we all think it’s hard when they are babies and toddler. It is too, I’m not saying it’s not. But at the end of a day, when they are babies, if they were fed, changed, played with and loved, you did your job. Now? The feeding and loving and clothing comes a bit easier. It’s the making sure they are okay emotionally that is hard. Because there’s no easy answers now. A kiss on boo-boo’s, doesn’t work when your child is in emotional pain. God, I wish it did.

I just hope I’m doing the right thing. That I’m not too late. That I can help her deal with something that I still don’t understand for myself.

I keep thinking that I should be doing better by now. That somehow I should be able to make myself feel better, be less sad, stop feeling as if my life has completely crumbled. I am constantly reminded by others that it is okay. Okay to be sad, okay to cry, okay to grieve. It’s okay. It’s not been long. It’s really only been two weeks. Tomorrow.

It’s only been 6 days since I realized this is permanent. I didn’t know that for sure until then. Six days. I lost all hope that day. Not sure why I still had some, but I did. Six days isn’t long, it’s not even a full week.

I wanted today to be the day that I stopped crying the second my kids go to bed. Or the second I drop them off with their father. The day that I stopped wanting to cry all day. The day that I’d start feeling like I may be capable of doing this.

I wanted today to be the day that I didn’t dread my day from the second I woke up. The day that I could see something good in my future. I wanted today to be the day that I answered all of the sweet emails and comments from all of you.

I wanted today to be the day I started actually reading posts again and engaging on Twitter. Doing more than opening and closing Facebook. Emailing people again.

Today is not that day. I am just not there yet.

Instead, this is what I know I can do for today:

Today I will remind myself that it’s okay to cry. It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay to not be okay. That there is no timeline on grief.

I will remind myself this afternoon, when my kids go to their dad, that they need him as much as they need me. That I will get used to this new schedule. That they will be home for bed.

Today I will rejoice in the fact that Bailey ate an entire donut and drank an entire glass of milk for breakfast, instead of worrying about the fact that she hasn’t eaten in a week. I will remind myself that she’s five and it’s been a week. They’ve only known for a week. That as long as she eats something, she will be okay.

I will call and un-enroll Harrison in toddler class. The last thing he needs right now is more change.

I will make more blueberry cobbler, because it made Morgan happy.

Today I will send you over to the Babble Top 50 Mommy Blogger list, which someone added me onto. Whoever did that, I adore you. To each of you who voted for me, I adore you too. Now, will you all do me a favor? Please go over and vote for Mamaspohr. Please. For me? Thanks.

Today I will thank each of you right here and now, for your sweet emails and comments. For offers to talk, for sending me your phone numbers. For text messages, Tweets and DM’s. Truly, you have no idea how much it means to me. I’ve read it all. I just haven’t found the energy to respond yet. Just know, you have made me feel so supported and loved and that is priceless.

Today, I will be realistic in my goals for myself.

My beautiful, smart, sweet, talented, smarty pants with a huge attitude girl. My big, eight year old. My Morgan. Today is your birthday. Today you are eight.

You said those words to me this weekend. The, I’m halfway to sixteen line. Sixteen is big to you. Yes my love, you are; today you are halfway to sixteen.

Can I tell you something though? I am not ready for you to be sixteen. Heck darling, I am not ready for you to be eight yet. I wish I could explain it to you. To the eight year old you. Not the you who will one day receive these letters. There unfortunately is no way I can explain to you how it feels to have an eight year old. Not until you are in my shoes. I can’t make you understand how being eight may seem young to you, but it seems so old too me.

I tried to explain to you how amazing this last year has been with you. How amazing and talented you are. How helpful and kind you are to your siblings. (Mostly. Ha.) How you are one of my three favorite people in this world. How grown up you’ve become.

You laughed at me. Silly mommy you said, being seven took forever. Being eight is better.

You’ve changed a ton this year, my love. You’ve grown. Not just taller, but wiser and more mature. Seven was a phenomenal year for you. For us. This year, we’ve grown much closer than before. In a way, we’ve become sort of friends. It’s been great. You are being mostly challenged in school for the first year ever, which you love. You are being forced to be more responsible at home; something you wanted and needed, but it took me a while to realize. I’m sorry baby, but I may always have to learn through you. You are the first after all.

In one year you have changed from only wanting to discuss Disney tween characters lives, to always wanting to talk about what is going on in the world; what is happening in our family. In one year, you have learned so much. You love to learn. You are constantly telling me something else you need to learn about, something new you want to learn how to do.In one year you changed from a little girl to a big girl. I’m not sure how I let it happen. It sounds silly I know, but this is the age I’d bottle you at, if I could. Most of the time, people say that about babies and toddlers. I do about your sister; nineteen to maybe twenty-three months was amazing with her. But you? I’d bottle you up at this age.

In some ways, I want to hang onto seven. Seven and I got along great. Then again, I said that about six too. Six was such a change from five for us. Seven made our relationship even better. It’s not about the year or the age though, it’s about you. It’s about you getting to a place where you understand life. You like the world more, the more you understand. It makes you happier to not be treated like a baby. You always tell me, mommy, tell me the truth. I do. Sometimes it hurts to tell you the truth, sometimes I’d rather not tell you the truth. But it’s important for you, so I do it as often as possible.

You are a natural born leader. You have dozens of friends. Trust me on this. You literally wanted to invite 32 people to your birthday party next week. You and Mackenzie** are, yet again, have a joint party. Cosmic bowling. Your auntie and I keep wondering how long that will last, the joint parties. Personally, I think it will continue forever, just because then between the two of you, can get away with inviting EVERYONE you know.

We have had a lot of talks about friends lately. About how easy it is for you. How easy it is for Kenzie as well. How it may not be so easy for others. How you and Mackenzie need to be friendly with everyone, even if you aren’t their friends. I know by the time you read this, it won’t matter anymore. By then you will be an adult and you will have found your own way through life. I also know I can only make sure you know right from wrong. At some point I have to trust that you know the difference.

Your favorite show right now is, Jonas. The Jonas Brothers. How I wish they’d go away. Really, when you are over loving these little boys, I am going to forever remind you of how lame they were. Sorry sweetie, but they are horrible. They can’t sing or act. Yet, they seem to be EVERYWHERE. I keep my mouth shut now….okay mostly I keep my mouth shut. Dude, they wear skinny jeans. Boys who can’t sing or act, wearing skinny jeans. Enough said.

You love Playing Majong, probably as much as I love playing Bejeweled. Let’s just call it what it is, an obsession. We are obsessed. We sit on the couch sometimes, side by side, me on my laptop and you on your daddies laptop, playing computer games. Tonight you will open the gift that you have said you wanted all year, an iPod Touch. I wnet back and forth on it, but I know you are ready for it. You are responsible enough and frankly, you’ve earned it this year.

Mario Kart, after an entire year, is still your favorite Wii game. You beg me every day to let you read the Twilight books. I’m not going to give in yet. Maybe when you are nine. Just because you can read and understand it, doesn’t mean you are old enough.

Baby girl, your birth made me the person I am today. You made me a mother. You challenge me every day to be a better one. I could not be more proud of you if I tried. I know eight will be an amazing year for you. Know that whatever happens in life for the next year, you will always have me.

Enjoy being eight, okay? Enjoy each day. One day, I promise you, I’ll let you turn sixteen.

Happy birthday Morgan,

Love mama

**Mackenzie is Morgan’s best friend…since oh say in utero. I call her my niece often, because her parents and I have been friends since we were four years old. Kenzie’s birthday is December 27th.