Last night I was reading "The Unprocessed Child: Living Without Schooling" by Valerie Fitzenreiter and came across this passage: "We all make choices in life and the choice I made was to be a mother. Being a mother meant freedom to me; freedom to be so in tune with a child that I knew her every want and need. Why would I give up this freedom for even an hour? I didn't need freedom from mothering; mothering was my freedom." Love it!

Accalia and I were on the couch last night and we were both pretty tired. I was sitting there and Accalia was lying down poking her feet at me. I asked her to stop a few times, but she didn't. So I told her I was going to move to another chair because her feet poking me was really bothering me. After a few minutes, she came over and I could see she was trying not to cry. She had such a look of confusion and hurt on her face, too. "You're my best friend, Mommy?" she asked me in this little, quivering voice. Oh, that just about broke my heart! I scooped her up, said "Of course we're best friends!" and apologized for being so short with her. I told her that I was just really tired and didn't have a lot of patience, but that was no reason for me to not be nice to her. Then all was better. I can't tell you how special that made me feel, either, that Accalia told me she's my best friend. Of course she's also said that Cole and Lucy are her best friends, so it's apparently not an exclusive position :)