Dawes Family in New Zealand

Out With The New, In With The Old

Everyday as parents we live our lives next to very special little people, often they’re testing, trying and sometimes very naughty, but as the years roll on they also become clever, mature big people. Bethany is 6 now, and although often we refer to her as ’6 going on 16′ she is only ever ‘naughty’ now and again and only with us. She has the most impeccable friendly manners with others and her school friends and teachers cannot praise her enough.

As the time ticks on you see changes, tastes vary, interests come and go and you start to have flashes of the fact you say things that sound exactly like your parents, the most recent in our house is the ‘in my day…’.

About 2 years ago we bought Bethany a brand new bed for her room. She had been sleeping on some really cheap horrible thing that we bought from a standard furniture place here when we moved over from the UK. We always intended on getting her a new bed but never really go round to it. Once we moved home we decided it was time and we bought her a lovely bed with a slide and playhouse underneath. Here is the video from the first time she saw it – this was April 2008….

Bethany loves anything girly and so her room has always been filled with princess dresses, posters of fairy tale characters or Dora The Explorer and a mass of stuffed teddies. In the past, music playing would be sweet lullabies or nursery rhymes. In the last few months some things have changed, the posters are being replaced with Spongebob Squarepants or posters of the world and planets, the dress ups have moved on to more sophisticated dresses and her bed is normally covered in make up or jewelry! And the music which we have noticed is now the High School Musical soundtrack!

With the progression came the lack of interest for the bed, but I think we got this a little too late. So it was time for the bed to go. We managed to get a good deal on Trade Me and so off it went to a different little special person to enjoy.

Out came a bed we brought over from the UK with us. It was a double four poster in pine, ideal as the new princess bed. We ordered a new matress and I spent many days lovingly painting it pink. It was a very very welcome new addition – Bethany loved it!

It’s back to school next week – six weeks already over. Summer is only really just starting and although late – it’s amazing. Bethany goes into a new class, with new people for the new term, a daunting moment for us all. But I have been assured it is the right class for her level, the teachers have said she is very advanced in conversation, writing and reading and so the new term will bring a class of older children, she will be in with children nearly 7 year old.

I sometimes wonder where the time goes. Its been 4 years this year since we arrived in NZ. Those years show a million times over just how much Bethany has grown and developed in that time. Its also a very different world we live in now, as I keep trying to tell Bethany – when I was a child things were very different and she needs to be hugely grateful for the opportunities and things she gets.

I think she gets it, lets hope that all our efforts, all our love, all our time makes our little darling grow to be a special big person one day.