Through the eyes of a child

For 2 years Alexyss has been asking to get her ears pierced and for 2 years I told her that she would have to wait until she was at least 8, and she held me to that. The only rule was that she would have to care for them and Tob and I felt that she was ready for that this year. So her and I planned a weekend get away to do a little ear piercing and shopping as her birthday gift and more importantly just have a little one on one mama daughter time.

We were planning on going to Boise but plans changed that morning and we headed to the Tri Cities instead. We stopped at the mall to do a little wandering around and spent about an hour in Claires before she was brave enough to take her seat in the piercing chair. They did both ears at once and she intently listened to all instructions they gave her and demonstrated that she could clean them herself. She proudly left the store with blue sapphire earrings, reporting that it hurt, although there were no tears shed at the scene.

This weekend I let Lex take the lead. After all it was mostly about her (and a little about me getting to spend it with her). I spent time listening to her plot against her brother coming up with pranks to play on him (much to my regret I gave her a few ideas), then she told me about who she "loves" at school (and I was sworn to secrecy so I can not tell). She is seriously a crack up and I loved listening to her. In addition to shopping and piercing ears we swam, ate at Red Lobster (her choice), then headed to 3D Alice in Wonderland show, played a couple games of Blink and finally layed down to sleep.

The next morning she woke up about 8:30, we enjoyed a large breakfast and then headed for the pool for another hour to swim. I didn't join her in the water this time, but she kept me fully entertained with cannonballs, dances, and great attempts at floating on her back. After the pool we had coffee (she had an Italian soda) and read a book at Barnes and Nobel. After a ride on the 75 cent mall pony and fear the security guard would kick us both off we headed for the Rollerarena.

When we finally found the roller skating rink we spent 2 hours skating, doing the hokey pokey, dancing, and laughing. I haven't been roller skating since I was little and it was SO much fun not to mention a great conclusion to our trip.

Well, almost, we had to stop for ice cream first.

and enjoy a nap on the way home so that......

We could be ready for a full day of sunshine and powder the next day.

I couldn't have asked for a better more needed weekend with my little girl. Life goes by too fast and it's moments like these that make me realize how important it is to slow it down and take the time to enjoy life through the eyes of a child.