July 15

Abby gets her braces tomorrow afternoon, so this evening I decided to take her out for a little treat. I wasn't sure where we were going when we left the house, but we wound up at the Dairy downtown, where we indulged in ice cream cones.

I took this picture --much to her chagrin-- and when I looked at it, I was surprised to see that she's markedly taller than me. I'm not sure when that happened; we'd been very, very close to the same size for quite a long while, but to see an actual, notable difference was jarring.

But it was jarring in a good way, because it's always, always a blessing to be able to see my children grow and change. So although I will no doubt wind up being the shorty in my immediate family --and I've never had a desire to be short-- I say bring it on.