Perspective

When we lived in Iowa, before Nadia was born, there was a particular little girl in the neighborhood who GRATED ON MY NERVES to no end.

Having only a boy, when the kids would all play outdoors and she would scream at the top of her lungs every few minutes (in sheer delight, I presume), I would jump up from whatever I was doing and run to the windows thinking a child had been hit by a car or that a masked murderer had just abducted one of her playmates before her very eyes. Even two years into our stint in that home, I was still on edge every time I heard her shrill "outdoor voice".

Today, as the mother of a four-year-old girl myself, I am cooking inside and hearing a couple of the neighbor girls outside sledding in our 5 inches of fresh snow. It just occurred to me that they've been screaming and yelping in delight as they romp through the snow drifts for thirty minutes now, and I haven't flinched once!
Oh, how we grow...