My mother's eldest child's oldest daughter

I am absolutely infatuated with this girl. Of course, as her mom I suppose that I am required to love her quite a bit. Her wild curly hair. Her perpetually scraped-up and band-aid covered knees above her bruised shins. Her crystal-clear-water-blue eyes. I love her. But sometimes she does things that I hope she won't grow out of when she's older and realizes how brave she is being.

Today I watched as she nonchalantly removed a large collection of spider webs from her playhouse and climbed up. She just swiped the webs, wiped them on the grass and went along playing. She ignored the half dozen spiders as they fled for their lives, she just plopped down on her slide and slid down. I marveled at the hundreds of women I know who would have screamed and shrieked as the small orb spiders scurried away.

I know as she gets older she will be told that as a girl she should be afraid of spiders. And there are plenty of reasons to be cautious with spiders (especially the potentially poisonous ones) but there's no reason she can't be a little diva and still be fearless.

It's just so neat to know that she doesn't have to grow up and be a total wuss about bugs. Like my serious phobia of camel crickets. Eek those things are sooooo creepy.