the day the terrible thing happened.

its not as if i didn't know it would happen.

i just wanted to deny it and hope and pray and cross fingers, toes, arms, legs that maybe it would just forget to happen.

it didn't forget.

it happened.

my little maile moo turned 12 last week. no, this isn't the terrible thing. this is a great thing-although i hate to see my littles get older it is a celebration every year of their growth and life and thank God, health.

we had mailes birthday at sky high. its a huge gym where the floors are trampolines and there are dodge ball areas and a huge foam pit for spectacular face plants.

its fun.

good, sweaty exhausting fun.

i mean, clearly the kid loved it!!

maile asked for a vintage typewriter for her birthday and i had spent a bunch of time looking around for one that worked that wasn't $200. anyway, shane found one and she loves it.

moo (i nickname everyone, i probably have one for you) was sitting up at the kitchen counter this morning tinkering around on it when she told me how she was gonna go clean out her room and organize it so she could make a spot for her typewriter.

music to a mutha's ears!

"that's great moo, put what you don't want into bags and i will take them to the goodwill." 

as she happily plunked away it happened. the terrible thing.

"oh, and im all done with my barbies so you can take those to the goodwill too," she said.

she is done with her barbies??? 

she is done with her barbies. sigh.

it was the last bit of the little little girl i had left. i was really holding onto this. i loved that she would still drag them out, cut their hair, bend their legs in crazy yoga poses, strip them of their clothes and i didn't even mind that she had a naked ken on top of naked barbie most days telling her how much he loved her. i thought it was sweet.

we were done with dollies and nightlights, all our plastic toys had been passed on to other littles, even our blankie had been packed up and stored away years earlier.

we had long ago quit saying most of the funny toddler words and now had perfect speech and grammar. and ya know what? i didn't care if the speech therapist told me i should correct her- i thought the word "uggy" happened to be better than the word "ugly", it made perfect sense to me and was used quite widely between my family and friends for years coz stuff is uggy sometimes!!

i tried to reassure her that she didn't have to get rid of the barbies if she still wanted to play with them. i was trying to give her an out to hold on to them just in case this was because other girls her age didn't play with them any longer and she felt she shouldn't either.

but she said no.

she said it was because she was done with them. she said it just like that.

she doesn't know this is a big step for her mom.

she is just simply done.

im really sad about this. i know its a stupid reason to be sad. but im gonna take my sadness and just be real with it and when im done im gonna pack up the barbies (even the ones with no hair) and take them to the goodwill. but im notgonnalie- this sucks bigtime.