So said our close-to-9-year-old daughter yesterday. She grabbed her little diary with a lock on it, and started writing, or logging, the events of her day. “Well, it’s September 29,” she began. She read it all to me this evening. From the morning of 9/29 through the evening of 9/30. It’s like a Captain’s Log from Star Trek. I love it.

She started doing this logging after I invited her to read this post. She was there you, see. She had her own perspective on that evening, not necessarily different, but it was her own. That she considered this, and on her own, decided to write about her own life… it thrills me. I would let her know how much it thrills me, but I know that if I did, I would ruin her efforts. They would no longer be her own idea. I would overshadow her. So I listened to her reading her log/diary. I laughed at loud at her recollections of her dad’s yoga practice–she doesn’t know how her matter-of-fact recollections translate into very dry humor. Or does she?

She wants to be like me. That floors me. Writing. It’s not a “Mommy” thing, it’s just a “thing.” She wants do to the thing Mommy does. 

Note: the final line of her log indicated she went to bed and snuggled with Mommy. I was snuggling with her in her bed as she read that, no pencil anywhere near us. 

“Heeeey… when did you write this?” 

(She wrote what she expected to soon do. Prior to our bedtime snuggling, she had asked me, as I typed at my desk, “How come I go to bed at the same time as [my younger brother]?” I answered “Because you end up winding down nicely, you play, or draw, or read…” She countered, “But why can’t I snuggle with you? I love you. I want to snuggle with you.”)

I’m done. I need parent no more. I’m just here to make sure nobody gets hurt. 

So. Thrilling.