Ada

She’ll be seven years old in just one month and she is the most kind, thoughtful, sweet and caring girl I could have hoped for. When I ask her if she will get my sandals, hold my purse, or hold her brother, she responds with a sweet, “Of course!”

Annabelle adores her sister and chats with her and calls to her constantly, and Ada is nearly always willing to answer her, play with her, or read to her. In fact, she loves having Annabelle as a playmate and spends a lot of her time describing to me the very detailed make-believe that the two of them are engaged in, what roles they are playing, how their outfits are appropriate, etc.

Ada’s world is better than ours because it is so heavily decorated with imagination. Her fantasies are charming and important to her. They came with her when we left the home for the motorhome.

You know how noteworthy people, when they relate their childhood stories, always say of their extraordinary childhoods that they just thought it was normal because it was all they knew? Well, I have a new theory that kids will think what they are doing is normal, even if they have known something else. Ada lived in the same house her whole life until now, but this fulltime RV business hasn’t tripped her up in the least. I think that at her age, she is still living in the NOW. Whatever is happening now is normal, even if it never happened before and it’s not happening to anyone else.

Maybe it’s because a young child’s world is so often out of their control. What is a mundane trip to the bank for me, comes out of the blue when I announce we’re going, and suddenly she’s swept up in putting away books, putting on shoes, and getting in her booster seat. Just like when I announce it’s time to get out and see Niagara Falls. What seemed obvious and predictable to me isn’t to her because I don’t always remember to share my plans and thoughts with her. So in a way, unpredictable is normal.

Ada has been looking forward to our getting on the road, and now she is enjoying the millions of stars in the black night on the Catskills, the Tansies on a Vermont roadside, the people we are visiting and those we are meeting everywhere, and every yellow car we see on the way. She is writing letters to friends and family about the highlights, which are never the ones I expect, and she is planning with eager anticipation a reunion with her best friend again when we go through Florida.