Such a Big Girl

This week Addie has been enjoying another week of VBS at Lala's (my aunt Elsa's) church in the evenings.  Because I am extremely comfortable with the environment, I taught quite a few of the teens when they were attending the academy for 4th or 5th grades, the pastor has been our "family" pastor for years (he officiated over my parents' marriage vow renewal, I taught his two oldest sons in 4th grade, he has officiated over the funerals for our family, and officiated over Faye's wedding), plus the fact that Lala has been in the kitchen in charge of snacks and my cousin Lisa was teaching one of the classes, I felt completely free to drop Addie off and leave for a couple of hours. 

The first night, we had a torrential rain storm which started on Sunday night and went straight through to Wednesday morning.  Brian was going to arrive home about 8:00 pm and was worried about my safety on the roads so I stayed at the church and sat with Lala in the kitchen.  Addie went with her group and participated beautifully.  She saw me sitting in the kitchen at one point as her class was going from one place to another and came to kiss and hug me.  I took those affections and then sent her off to catch up with her class. 

Tuesday night, I had a doctor's appointment, so Brian and I dropped her off early with Lala and off we went.  When we came back to pick her up, we found out that she had not been in the 3-5 year old class, but instead had been in Lisa's class (for 6-8 year olds).  Of course, I didn't mind at all.  But then Lisa told me why the following night.

My cousin, who is also a homeschooling mom, knows and understands where I am coming from in our upbringing of Addie.  She knows that Addie is used to a certain amount of structure in her day, lessons, and so on.  She also knows that Addie's attention span is longer than most kids her age, so she knew that Addie would be fine in her class.  But even she was amazed at how quietly Addie sat during the lesson time, how well Addie followed the directions at game time, and listened during the group session time.  During game time, all of the adults found it cutely funny that this little 3 year old could hear, understand, and follow the directions.  It was even cuter that she kept looking over to see if Lala was watching her play the game. 

My favorite part has been going back to pick her up with Brian, sneaking in without her notice, sitting in the back of the group session, and watching her follow along with the choreography video while singing the  VBS songs and participating in the activities (my child has rhythm... that is definitely from the Hispanic side).  On our way home, Brian and I enjoy hearing Addie retell the Bible account from the lesson, listening to her tell us about game time, and having  her describe the snack that Lala made for the evening (always is in correlation with the lesson). 

The one thing that really hit us the other night was that she is such a big girl to us, but she looked so little next to all of the kids around her.

Tonight is the final night of VBS, and I am looking forward to seeing what she has learned.   I'm looking forward to bringing home all of the crafts that she made.  This time around, I am really enjoying just being a parent and not the teacher.  And most of all, I love being the mother of this awesome little girl.