Innocence

This is my baby. She is eight years old.




She doesn't look eight years old. She is not quite four feet tall, and still hasn't hit 40 lbs.

She can be a pill at times, but she is a snuggler, a kisser, and most of all, she still loves me. She tells me every day.

It kills me to think of what's going to happen in about four years.

Yesterday, her neighborhood buddy Zach (age 9) came over to see if she could play. He'd gotten a new Wii game that he wanted to show her, something about rabbits. I'm guessing now (after perusing Amazon) that it's probably "Rayman Raving Rabbids", or some such thing.

He said, "Kylie, guess what? My character is wearing a thong!"

Kylie looked at me and said, "What's a thong?"

At that moment, I just wanted to hold her and never let go. Because despite having two teenage sisters and going to public school and having two nine year-old boys as neighborhood friends, this child honestly had no idea what a thong was. I just told her it was a kind of underwear.

Can't I freeze her this way? Before she knows that the world is horrible and nasty and there is no Santa Claus?

Is letting go of the last one always this hard?