I miss my little girl whose adorable curls and determined face used to light up my days. One day she was there and the next she had slipped into the guise of a teenager. She is a very busy teenager with a life of her own who sulks when she is home without her friends and sometimes I just miss her. We try to do things together but it isn’t always easy and we both recognize this but at the bottom of things we are still close and we do sometimes find time to just be together.

The other day she asked if we could just go for a ride and I jumped at the chance. ‘Are you kidding’ I said, ‘of course we can.’ Once we had buckled in I asked her where she wanted to go suspecting she might just want to go shopping. ‘Let’s just ride mom’ she said, so we rode. We drove down country roads and admired the scenery and talked girl talk and laughed. As I looked at her I wonder when it was that she had grown so beautiful and into such a strong and independant young lady.

I caught myself admiring the planes of her face and thinking I should probably keep my eyes on the road. It’s hard to say what it feels like to be a mother and watch your children grow. As a baby she was full of wild determination, a quality that could easily get her into trouble when she was but a tiny thing but a quality I knew would stand her well as she grew older. I fully admire this child of mine but even I know she’s not perfect and thank God for that. I already feel inadequat for the job.

‘Mom, look,’ she pointed out the window to an old barn. I slowed the car so we could see better. Now I have always loved old barns and was delighted when I saw the sparkle in her eye. She looked wistful and in a voice that was almost a reverant whisper she told me she loved old barns and wondered if there were more we could see.

If you need to reconnect with your teen daughter just spend some time with her, go for a drive or a walk and listen. Even when she isn’t saying much she will be telling you a story, a story about her and who she is and where she wants to go with her life. It’s these little bits of time pieced together that create the peartls of your life, enjoy them, make some memories and bring them out often.