Six and counting

The love of my life is 6. A full six years and still by my side. My baby my boo boo my vaeh.  Lil miss Nevaeh Abrianna is the star and the passion in my life.

Over the last two years her and I have gone through huge transitions together. The bigest transition has come ths last year.  With me getting a full time job and being back in school, I see her less than I would like.I know less than she would like. I struggle at feeling like a "good mother". She goes to school for a good part of the day, but I don't take her, and I can only get her 1 time a week. This year is the first time we have spent so much time apart. Before this, her first 5 years, she was able to go to work with me (thanks ma and pa) and school was not quite as intensive.

I struggle with this. I want to be with her more. To feel like a mom who is more involved. I get to be involved in the early moning when she is still grumpy and doesn't want to get ready for school and at nihgt when dinner, reading, and the fighting bed time occurs. I try to fill our weekends with adventures and "dates" so she knows how important she is to me. But if I am feeling it, the lack of time together, I worry endlessly over whether or not she is as well. 
Even though I feel like a poor mother. I know the truth is she is an amazing little person. She reads stories to me at night now, which took me by suprise. One day she is struggling to read, the next, she is mastering it.  She gossips with me about things that are important to her. Her gossip is the best. She talks about how much she loves her grandparents. How special her "sissy" is and how funny her cousins are and how much she "missing" them. She asks me about her birthdays. Suggesting that when she is 7 she "will be old enough for her own cell phone.. maybe". When I tell her she is a bit young to have a cell phone and that may not happen until shes a teen, she argues in her own silly way and says "I'm 6 and counting mom, I know how to use a phone."
On our dates weekly morning dates we go to starbucks and we chit chat over hot chocolate. She shares what her monster high barbies have been doing and fills me in on their lives.  She asks me questions about my vegetarianism and has shared that she "likes chicken and real milk" and "not your food mom". But she is so aware of the fact I eat differently. She makes sure the food I have been given "is ok for mommy to eat" and she has told me her favorite monster high barbie, Frankie, "eats weird like you mom. She doesn't like to eat animals". 
In her own way she too has learned to be compassionate for animals. She loves "her jersie" and "her kitties". She is very affectionate to them all when she comes home. She takes a moment right when she walks in the door to find each of them and pets them, kisses the, and tells them how much she loves them. It makes my heart soar to see how loving she is.
She not only shows awareness of my needs and things I feel are important, but she seems to have grown a huge heart for the homeless. When we get in the car she grabs gronola bars and puts them next to her seat "in case we see any homeless people mom, they might need something to eat".  I love it.
Again I am just a mother desperately in love with her amazing daughter. I am in awe of who she is and excited to watch her grow and evolve as a person.