You can watch time fly

My Grampy used to say "If you want to see time fly, watch a child grow."
So true!

My step daughter (S) turns 18 today.

I have been working on scrapbooks for all 3 kids, documenting their lives. The problem has been, I wasn't there for the beginning. S got the bug to scrapbook her life's highlights so she and I spent all New Years day and last Sunday sorting, scanning, copying, and transferring pictures from both our house and her Mother's. It was very time consuming and emotional.

I hid it well, but it was a hard emotional journey to go through all these old pictures seeing K's life before me. Especially the picture documentary of S's birth. Seeing young, skinny, dark-haired K beaming proud in a hospital gown holding his 10 minute old daughter was hard.

I've seen pictures before, but so many of them, in that context was difficult. Especially since I'm having trouble giving him that experience again.

In another way, it was nice to embed these 18 years worth of pictures into my brain almost like they are memories for me. In my mind, can pretend to have been there from the beginning of their lives.

Now comes the difficult part. We will need to find the perfect balance of teaching and guiding with allowing S to grow, explore and fall on her own. It is hard to know there will be times we will have to stand back and allow her to fall.