All American Girl

Emma turned 7 on March 29. To main celebration of her birthday, I took her to Chicago for her first official, "Girls Weekend". Our biggest attraction was the American Girl Place downtown Chicago. We flew on Friday afternoon, took the train downtown, she experienced her first taxi ride, and spent the entire afternoon looking at books, dolls, and having the real American Girl Place experience. It was such a treat for me to be able to spend time with just her. No distractions of things to do around the house, no little brothers to take up our time; just mom and Emma. I realize that one on one time with a child is very important and not all one on one moments need to take place in another city or at the American Girl store, but it was during this weekend that I realized that I have not had this much time with just her since her first year of life. While that time in her life was very important to me and am certain it will be to her one day too, those memories are foggy to say the least. The first 3 months of her life I spent in a state of "what do I do NOW?" and soon after that I was back in the throws of a first trimester of pregnancy and all the glory that brought along with it and being pregnant and having a baby to take care of. Its sort of sad, and sometimes its hard to admit, I may have not really "enjoyed" her first year of life as much as I would have liked. But do not discount that comment is anything but loving her since the minute I found out I would be having a baby. I often get emotional thinking about that time in our life as we prepared of the arrival and I love remembering everything about the day she was born. It is astonishing that it has been 7 years ago! Back to our weekend. I have to say, that I had her get her picture taken in the photo studio and they put the picture on the front of an American Girl magazine. So for an extra $5 I could have her picture appear on the Celebration Screen, this huge tv screen and it had her picture on it with her name, etc. Right there, that was worth the price of admission! She was so cute and so appreciative of her day that several times throughout the day she would stop and give me a kiss or a hug and just say 'Thank You' without being prompted. She stopped and said, "Oh mom, this has been the greatest day of my whole life" Granted, its only been 7 years, but I was more than blessed to be part of it! To spend a day with a 7 year old and to really spend the time seeing things through her eyes might just rank right up there as one of the greatest days of my life too! Enjoy some pictures of our trip and videos of the sweetest baby girl at our house!