This picture just kills me. Look how tall she looks!! And her hair is getting so long.

Addy is getting so big in so many ways, I am reminded many times a day that she is not a baby anymore. I miss my baby, a lot! But I also love how self-assured my big girl is, how determined, how curious and steadfast and fearless and confident.

One crazy thing I will never get used to about Houston is the storms. They roll in out of nowhere and then are gone in a heartbeat. I think I can count on one hand the number of times it rained for more than a few minutes! But it rains hard enough that we have not had to turn on our sprinkers at all this year!

Once we were all swimming in the pool, the sun was out, hardly a cloud in the sky and the few clouds we had were big and puffy. And suddenly it starts to pour. And pour. And the sun is still out, the only cloud in sight is still big and white and puffy. Its so fun - often the kind of rain the kids can really play in and enjoy - devoid of any thunder or lightening. Plus its COLD rain and its always HOT here. Bonus!

But sometimes it doesn’t just rain but it STORMS. Most of the time it seems like they still come out of nowhere, last a few minutes, blow through hard and the sun is back. It is the weirdest thing. I’ve long since learned not to bother looking at the weather because a prediction of storms is inconsequential. It doesn’t stop or ruin plans, it rarely even happens and when it does it’s over in a heartbeat.

Addy, though, she’s still getting used to the thunder. She hates loud noises and thunder is no exception. Today I distracted her from a hard-hitting storm that tore through by letting her watch the river that formed on our drive and the rainwater that came rushing out of the neighbor’s gutter. She’s lived here long enough to know that rain, more often than not, means rainbows. So she looked and looked but this storm didn’t bring any rainbows.

I love the way she handles her fears. Often she determines she is afraid of something and rather than avoid it, she plows steadily through, finding opportunities to expose herself to her fears and eventually they are a thing of the past. Its like fear is an emotion she refuses to let settle within herself. Now I know that if she is afraid of something, the way to handle it is to bring in her for a closer look, a more detailed examination, and suddenly she’s no longer afraid at all. I could learn a thing or two from this girl.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 7:48 pm and is filed under Moving, Nature, Photos & Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.