A Momment with Corina

I have a five year old neighbor named Corina. I have been her buddy since the day she was born. I went right to the hospital the moring she was born and I could see her smiling in her sleep as she lay in her bed. I have changed her, I've bathed her, and I've put her to bed more times than I can count. The other day she came over and we baked cookies. I have done this numerous times and that day we were making chocolate chip cookies. She knew how to scoop the flour and level it off by now. She knew how to crack the eggs and add the sugar. "This girl was going to make a great baker someday." I thought. When we were done, I took the beaters off the mixer and she got one and I got one. We stood there for a few minutes eayting the cookies dough off the beaters and it hit me. I had been taking care of Corina for so long that I hadn't realized how grown up she was. There was a huge difference between that sleeping newborn to the kindergartener that she was today. She could bake! She could carry on conversations with me. She was not just my buddy but a real person who was going to be an adult one day. This was a crazy realization that I didn't want to make because I loved her so much. I think that in the end I treat her more as a "big girl" (not an adult yet) and let her make more desicions than I have in the past.