Anyone who knows me even a little knows that my niece and nephew are my heart.\u00a0 I love them almost as much as I would if I’d actually given birth to them.<\/p>\n
Luke is 21 and that is really hard for me to comprehend.\u00a0 I feel like it was just a couple years ago I held him at his baptism worried I was going to drop him.<\/p>\n
But what is be even harder for me is that Ava is 14 and is very much in her “adults are boring” era.\u00a0 And since I’m an adult I am included in this group.\u00a0 This breaks my heart.<\/p>\n
I’ve treasured the shopping trips and hugs and all the things Ava and I have shared.\u00a0 We’ve discussed everything from Taylor Swift to skincare routines to the best Christmas cookie.\u00a0 And now?\u00a0 I’m lucky if I can get a complete sentence from her.<\/p>\n
I’m not putting down Ava.\u00a0 I get it.\u00a0 She’s 14.\u00a0 This is normal.<\/p>\n
I’m still insanely proud of her.\u00a0 As a freshman she’s a varsity cheerleader and in select choir.\u00a0 She is one of 4 members of the color guard team who does rifles as well as flags and has a solo moment at the end of the matching band field show.<\/p>\n
I still love Ava to death.\u00a0 I just miss being someone she is actually happy to see.\u00a0 \u00a0I’m told she will come out the other side of this stage and we can be close again.\u00a0 I just have to be patient.\u00a0 \u00a0Patience is not a strength of mine, but what choice do I have?<\/p>\n
In the meantime I will still brag endlessly about her to anyone who will listen.\u00a0 I’ll cheer for her from the sidelines.\u00a0 And I’ll be here when she is ready to hang out again.<\/p>\n
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Anyone who knows me even a little knows that my niece and nephew are my heart.\u00a0 I love them almost as much as I would if I’d actually given birth to them. Luke is 21 and that is really hard for me to comprehend.\u00a0 I feel like it was just a couple years ago I held him at his baptism… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[25,27,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bright-shiny-objects","category-its-all-love","category-myself"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/field-show-finale.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beckypalmer.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}