4 Year Old Independence

As you know, I live on a very busy street which was recently made only slightly better by the addition of a sidewalk last summer. Unfortunately the sidewalk doesn't wrap around to other streets so it's not like it's any safer for a four year old to go walking to a friend's house on it.

SP has a couple of friends she frequently plays with on the street directly behind us. But because of the safety issue, we always have to load the kids into the car to deliver them for playing, and it's a huge pain.

Fortunately we have a little walkway behind my house between the fences of the homes that leads out to the street behind us. But in the years since it's been used, it's grown over with grapevines and all sorts of other vines. I decided today to clean it out to allow SP some independence in going over to her friends' houses without me having to go with her all the time.

It took me two hours, and I'm exhausted now but it was so worth it to see her truckin' through the path over to her friend's house to see if she could play. I can hear her saying many times in the future months, "Mom, can I go see if ________ can play?"

The worst part though is she has to cross that neighborhood road all by herself and as she went today, my heart beat fast as I took a big step myself in letting her grow up. In prep for my next daughter, I've found myself making many changes to help her make steps to grow up - if not just to help me out. Changes are hard, but good.