Mother's Day 2009 was spent at Brian and Jill's house. The rain had finally cleared, the sun was out, and the cousins picked up just where they left off the last time they were together.As I watched Stella play with Tyler, Delia and Marni, I marveled at how amazing she can be when she's living life at 100%.
100% doesn't always happen with Stella. The shyness thing often gets in the way. But with the cousins, Stella is always at 100%.
The kids immediately headed for Tyler's green battery-powered jeep. Unlike other times, there was no fighting over who was going to drive. Everyone shared. Stella was laughing and screeching with joy as they drove around the yard. And very unlike other times, Marni was finally old enough to take the wheel and drive.
This was a far cry from the past when Marni had to settle for being the passenger (see the post in November 2007). Now she takes her sister and cousin Tyler for a spin around the house. Laughing and screaming all the way.
Later in the day the kids all participated in their favorite summertime activity of painting the Hoffman deck with water. Stella was barking orders at the kids and making special announcements to the grown-ups. Eventually the cousins all stripped down to their underwear (or worse) and finally ended up with everyone wearing a Tyler bathing suit.A couple of times during the afternoon we noticed that the kids had disappeared altogether. After hurriedly searching the house, we found them all playing in the front yard and driveway... with no supervision. Maybe this doesn't mean much to parents of older kids, but this was a big deal for us. We never let the kids play outside without keeping an eye on them.
But they were living life at 100%. Unsupervised. Uninhibited. And loving every minute of it. I stood back and watched in awe as my two little girls did their thing. On their own and on their own terms.
They are amazing kids.
