Sadie at age 8

Sadie turned eight on the fourth of July. She is at an in between age. She has been really cranky and angsty lately and so I gave her some extra space with a new bedroom. Sadie goes in to her bedroom on the early side and writes in her diary now and she does things like read books and play with her dolls, the same dolls that had been strewn through the house for the last several years that I lovingly put together and created a space for in her room. She has Kit and Kaya and Elizabeth and they are with her in to the evenings now. She is at an age where she waits for her older sister to come home as if royalty is arriving and when she sees the look of disappointment and dissatisfaction on her sister's face she is quick to put the same look on her face, so quick to be a teenager, still can be found in my bed at night time telling me to sing her a lullaby. Molly thinks I am coddling her. That makes me sad. Sadie is at an age where she begged and pleaded for earrings and we talked about the pros and cons, the pain and responsibility and then she when she told me she was ready, firmly, strongly, we traveled to the mall to get the earrings and she backed out in the final hour whining and complaining that it was going to be too painful and when they had wrapped up the earrings that we had to buy anyways and I was asking Nora if she would like to get her ears pierced while we were there she turned back and had the lady pierce them anyways, despite her fear. Sadie is at an age when all the ten and up girls that hang out in our group of homeschoolers are around she is so cool and all that and whatever and then just like that when she has only little Hayley from next door who is 4 years old she can be found out there playing dirt with her and reading Clifford books again. Sadie got an MP3 player from my dad today in the mail, late for her birthday. She got it and I thought, "Damn, now I have to go in to that world." My father, the king of not knowing what to buy has introduced an MP3 player in to my 8 year olds world. She has been mad about it all night, not mad like angry, mad like insanely happy. She waited at the door to tell Molly who of course shrugged her off and couldn't care less and bragged to Nora all night. She made me hook it up which I am currently doing and I spent hours downloading songs for my 8 year old to listen to. I had fun doing this which of course was surprising to me. I downloaded tons of songs by her father which of course was a pleasure to do but then I downloaded some of my favorites too. I downloaded some Family Folk Chorale songs and some Cat Stevens songs and Grateful Dead and the Beatles. While I was doing this Sadie was watching Thomas the Tank Engine with her 5 year old sister laughing and talking about all of the trials and tribulations of that train Thomas.