Castle on the wall

When my daughter was little, I painted a castle on her wall.  She loved fairies and dragons and pink.

Her dragon pictures are crooked.  I'd get a picture of the entire wall, but then I'd have to include her desk, shelf, and dresser.  No one needs to see those disasters.

Over the years, she's added her own touch.  I think the butterflies are kind of cute.  We also put glow in the dark stars around the castle so it lights up the night sky in the background.  You can see one of the stars between the windows.

Some stickers have been there longer than others.

Now she's growing out of her castle on the wall.  Some of the stickers she added are peeling off.  Some of the fairies she put in the windows are gone completely. She's almost twelve.  She's almost in middle school (for us middle school starts in 7th grade).  She's almost grown up.  (Sniff.  This blog is seriously making me weepy) I've come to accept the fact that she's no longer a baby.  We've had THE talk, and she was horrified. (Keep thinking that way, kiddo - at least for another ten years.)

We still spend a lot of time together, but we no longer talk about fairies and magic.  (Unless we're talking Harry Potter, in which case she will go on and on.) She likes to talk about boys and how weird they are. We talk about her friends and how awesome they are. I've been teaching her to cook and use a curling iron. There are days when I miss the glitter and fluffy pinkness.  I've thought about painting over the castle on her wall, but we plan to build a room for her downstairs, so I don't want to tear her room apart just to have her move downstairs in another year.

This morning I was telling the kids goodbye as they headed off to school.  My youngest was already on across the yard and my daughter's friend was across the street.  I yelled goodbye to them all and then said to my daughter, "Have fun storming the castle." We're pretty big Princess Bride fans.  I used to yell this to them all the time, but she sort of grew out of it.

My daughter looked around and a little half smile appeared on her lips.

Then she said in a voice loud enough for me to hear, but no one else, "Think it will woik?"
"It'll take a miracle," I said.
She grinned, waved, and yelled, "Goodbye!"

It was just a little bit of magic, a tiny spark of glitter, but it was enough.  My daughter is growing up, but is still my little girl. She will always be my little girl. I think the castle on her wall can stay for a bit longer.