Little and Big Kids

A picture of Miriam lives on our fridge. She's four years old, pigtails flying, bandaid on one knee, pink helmet on head, lugging her bike behind her. In this picture she is the most darling four-year-old in the whole entire world. 

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Today Phoebe was wearing the same helmet (which is now 12 years old...which is old for a helmet), which she calls her unicorn helmet because back in 2014 I used the helmet to create a unicorn costume for our neighbourhood 4th of July parade, which I honestly did not realize would be 100% patriotically themed. 

I know now that red, white, and blue is...like... sacrosanct to the holiday...and to deviate from that is...heretical, perhaps even treasonous. But at the time, I was completely naive to this idea. I had limited experience celebrating the holiday and my experience with celebrating the birth of a nation was more of a hodgepodge of joy than colour-coded pride. 

Anyway, we made the unicorn mane back in 2014, and although the construction paper horn has long since disappeared, the mane has been gone strong for a decade. So this is the unicorn helmet. 

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Phoebe was inspired by Ireland's scooter-riding skills and has been determined to actually figure out how to ride since we've been home. This has been a lovely shift in her attitude because typically she needs quite a bit of prodding to commit to the scooter (she'd rather just run around). She asked to bring her scooter on our walk this evening, however, and rode it for quite a long way. I was very proud of her (and was super impressed with her bailing skills—whenever things went south she just let the scooter fall and elegantly jumped off to safety and although I'm not sure we will keep that trend forever, it was kind of nice).

Here she is working her way up the hill:

That part was pretty slow. But here she is coasting down a gentle slope (which was much faster):

I saw her carrying her scooter and was reminded of that picture of Miriam that lives on my fridge. It helped, perhaps, that Phoebe was wearing the same helmet...and a shirt that once belonged to Miriam...and had her hair done in long, flowing pigtails...

I asked her if she would carry her scooter with one hand for me while I took a picture and...while cute...she certainly doesn't have the same despondent vibe that Miriam had in her picture (probably because Phoebe felt like she was succeeding while Miriam felt she was not).

And her hair isn't flying quite so freely behind her. One of her pigtails has pulled into a ringlet, while the other side is a bit looser, but it's not the frizzy post-braid hair that Miriam had going on. So they're certainly individuals...

But I couldn't help but think about sweet little 4-year-old Miriam today while Phoebe was zipping along (relatively speaking) on her scooter.

Here's today-Miriam acting as a barrier for Phoebe, who is barelling towards her at full speed.

Miriam has done a lot of growing up in the last 12 years, hasn't she? She's a wonderful big sister and an amazing human!

My mom used to say (and probably would still say today, if you asked her) that she misses her little kids...but loves her big kids. And I'm really feeling that today. 

Four-year-old Miriam was my favourite. 

And today Miriam is also my favourite.