Things have been happening lately, and regardless of how we try to slow it down – it just keeps coming. Like Ben Folds once said in a song, life barrels on like a runaway train. We’ve had some milestones recently in our family, and quite few more coming. It’s enough to take your breath away.
So, to start things off, our daughter turned 16 last month. That one is a little bittersweet. It’s amazing watching her grow and change, but scary for all the obvious reasons. She’s growing and changing into someone not a kid anymore. With all that is all the things all parents have dreaded and had to deal with. Things like dealing with teaching her how to drive, giving her more independence, planning for college, and a boy….
The driving lessons have been a slow progression. Like a lot of teenagers now, our daughter is not all that interested in learning how to drive. She never asks to go practice or ever brings it up. She actually seems a little sad that she has to learn. I know we are. We pushed hard last summer for her to study for the written exam so she could get her learner’s permit, which she did. But since then we have only been out to learn and practice just a few times. She’s done pretty good during those lessons, but we have yet to leave the school parking lot. We thought she would get behind the wheel training at school, but she has to have enough practice on her own with us before she can take behind the wheel. So a combination of her not being in any hurry and us not being in any hurry has led to us not getting very far in the driving world. But it’s there, lingering. Now she’s 16. The plan going forward is get a lot of practice in over the spring and take a private behind the wheel course during the summer. Then get the license. From there? Does she really have to go out there in a car all by herself?
Did I mention there is a boy? Actually, he’s a really nice kid. Very polite and respectful. We’ve met his parents a few times and they are very nice too. All in all, as good as you could hope for at this age. He’s in the JROTC at his High School and asked her to their Ball. A formal dance as a sophomore! Exciting and unexpected, so we had the fun of dresses and shoes and flowers and pictures a year earlier than we thought. It was fun, though, and they had a great time. It was a good experience for her to go through before next year’s Ring Dance. Her big take away is that she really likes slow dancing. Omg.
But we did get to stage this heart tugging scene…
Sigh…
We’ve been living in our house long enough now that everything that used to be new or seem like new is now needing to be replaced. In some cases have needed to be replaced for a while. In the last year and a half or so we have replaced our washer and dryer, the refrigerator, the dishwasher, and just recently the garage door opener. Another year or two back we replaced the air conditioner and some bathroom floors, too. The looming big items, though, have been our windows and the roof. We’ve had a problem for many years now with a bunch of our windows going bad. A few were really bad. It was embarrassing having people over. We kept putting it off, though. New windows or a vacation this year? We kept choosing the vacations. Well, we couldn’t put it off any longer, so we bit the bullet and got a bunch of them replaced. Nine to be exact. It’s nice having that monkey off the shoulders now. Next is the roof. It’s not leaking or giving us any problems, but it’s old and some people around us have already had theirs done. Maybe in a year? But there is college to pay for coming up…
Well, in the spirit of change and life and a little sadness – and the big earlier reference to Ben Folds, there’s this:
dave's word 