I'd call it: Remembering

Pumpkin Fest painting from last year

I'm sure every community in the country has some sort of autumn gathering.  Ours is Pumpkin Fest.  Kids dress up, paint pumpkins, eat goodies.  There's country music and a lot of home-baked bread and pie and gooey treats.  People set up craft booths and sell things.  We go every year, rain or shine.  Or at least we will, for as long as our daughter wants to go.

If you've got kids you know the time comes when they cross an imagined line in the sand and can't go back.  They don't believe in fairy tales anymore, or Santa.  The world isn't made of magic, like it was when they were three.  They would rather hang out than go to organized activities.  They prefer their friends to you. 

There will be times when I'll be lonely for my 'baby girl'.  She's getting older and I already feel that way, at times.  So across my daughter's childhood I've taken pictures, like this one, of school projects and little crafts and costumes.  Of parties and wonder and birthday cakes and Christmas morning.  It's my way of preserving the hundreds of moments I can't keep for real--not to mention the hundreds of projects and crafts.  It's the perfect way to remember.