A Time For Everything

Ecclesiastes 3:1 “For everything there is a fixed time…”

Last night my teen daughter (almost 16) went on her first date. Her dad and I took her to the movie theater that her and the young man (who we both have met and talked with) decided to meet at. It was at a casino. Not about to let her walk into a casino alone, we walked her up the escalator to the cinema and waited only a few short minutes at the food court with her until he walked up. We then kept ourselves occupied by various errands and Face Book posts by me till it was time to pick her up.

Only in Vegas would kids meet in a casino to go to the movies. Most places have cute old movie houses that smell vaguely of stale buttered popcorn. However, the point of this post isn’t about Vegas being a strange place to raise kids or how much faster or more sophisticated teens grow up here.

What I realized last night is my little girl isn’t my little girl anymore.

– She’s grown up into a stunning svelte dancer.

Being her mom, it seems prejudiced to say that she literally turns heads when she walks into a room, but it’s true. Her long thick mane of curly red hair and dark eyes contrasted against her porcelain skin are definite show stoppers.

This is the time when she will be experiencing life more without me by her side.
She’s a young adult now.
Gone is the time when I held her hand to cross the road,
teaching her about looking for cars both ways.
Forever entangled in her memories are the lessons I so desperately wished to instill in my little girl’s mind, coming forth only when called upon by her.

This is the time I never wanted to come – The time when my baby would grow up. But just like the baby bird isn’t meant to stay in its momma’s nest, so a daughter must learn to fly.