Rearranging

My daughter is a few months from being an official teenager. It's hard for me to believe that time is already almost upon me. As a means of accepting her growing up, she has more freedoms in her life. She has earned an increased amount of time per day on her iTouch. She has more minutes per month on her phone. The caveat to her privileges are that she keeps her grades up.

And today we took another step at recognizing her expanding individuality. We've re-arranged her room and changed her decor. I bought her a new bedside lamp last weekend, because her old one died. The new lamp sparked her desire to change the rest of her room.

The bed is now on a different wall. Her dresser and bookcase are now beside each other on the same wall. Her chair (a leftover from our old sectional couch) is in the far corner of her room. We strung up some clear white Christmas string lights on the walls that are controlled by one of those foot switches. There's some new bedding on order too that should come in a week.

She's really happy with how things look. Just changing the furniture around to give her room a new perspective was good. It was fun just doing it all with her. I'm just so glad she let me help. Soon enough she'll want to do things all on her own. So for now I relish in my time with her. The fact that she still HUGS me when she says "good night". The fact that she isn't embarrassed to sit on next to me when we're out to dinner. The fact that she takes a few minutes every day after school to chat with me about her day. It warms my heart and makes me smile inside every time she comes to me on her own.