Alone Time. Together.

A few weeks before school started Audrey specifically started asking for she and I to have some alone time together.  With life being so crazy around here we would get our little alone moments by running to get the last thing at the grocery store while the others got in line, or by cuddling after the Hannah and Eli were asleep at night, tiny moments like that.  When they would be fighting and I would come to assist in resolving it she would say, 'I just want to be alone!' which we've told her is a good thing to say if she's upset...but then when I say 'Okay that's fine' and try to have me and the others give her space, she says 'No I want alone time with YOU Mom!'

So obviously this alone time was not working out the way she wanted.  

But finally a few days before school we got to have our special alone time that she had been asking for- a Mommy Daughter Date.  

We went downtown to Salt Lake City and grabbed a chocolate treat from Rocky Mountain Chocolates at the City Creek mall and walked a little ways through the city streets to Temple Square, one of my top 3 favorite places on earth.  My college years are what made it a special and very sacred place for me because I walked through and spent time there every day to get to and from my apartment.  Then later it is where Andrew and I saw each other for the first time after his mission and it is also where he proposed.  There is also a picture I have seen of my Grandma Chandler standing near the exact spot where I would sometimes sit during those college years, just loving to be near the temple.  So being the sentimental person that I am you can imagine how much I have loved sharing that lovely beautiful place with my own daughters now so far.  Someday I will take Eli there too on a Mommy Son Date of some kind.  

Audrey and I sat in a special spot, another one where I used to come sit happily and peacefully alone in college and also where Andrew and I have some memories.  I was thinking she and I would talk about school coming up and other things going on in our family's life.  But then I remembered.  She's five!  I remembered because no matter how hard I tried the conversation could not stay in any one place!  Her happiness just to be out alone with me (because isn't it beautiful that to your child you are just THAT great of a person?) came through in disjointed sentences, barely paying attention to anything I was saying, getting distracted by each and every flower we walked past, to where I finally gave up my own silly agenda and decided to just talk and squeal right along with her about the flower petal in the water that was floating down the river fountain.

It was a perfect date with my five year old Audrey Kea.

In later years we can have deep conversations about our feelings but for now I just stared at her as she went on about the random thoughts in her smart little brain and I just basked in the happiness of all things five year old.