I was sick as a dog this morning.
I am thankful for the prayer of friends....and a much-needed 3 hour nap.
I feel so...much...better. I am cooking dinner now. This morning the last thing on my mind when I woke up was eating anything...or cooking anything for that matter. My throat was on fire, I was coughing and sneezing and my nose was so congested. I felt "weird" like achy and my arms just had this weird feeling. I can't explain it.
I was sure I was dying.
But here I am.
Guess I'm not dying after all. LOL.
I missed choir at church. I was so upset about that. I really, truly was. I love worship the most at church. Yes, I always love the message our pastor shares and he has this amazing way of sharing the message that even a non-believer would say "whoa! I get it!" but worship is awesome.
I remember when I first started going to this church back in January. I saw all those people up there in the choir and all I kept thinking was "I would love to sing up there." I don't have much of a voice, "God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called," this is definitely a true statement. I can sing SOME soprano but those Mariah Carey high notes won't be escaping my mouth any time soon. I am a second soprano according to the amazing elderly woman who "drafted" me into choir(even though when she asked, "can you sing?" I replied, "NOPE.")
Apparently she(and God) saw something in me I didn't see.
So here I am now, 8:40 at night, well rested and having just finished dinner and now blogging here as I listen to Charles Stanley in the background. I do feel like I could sleep more, and I probably will go back to bed soon, but I need to make sure that my daughter does the dishes and we get this box of 50+ videos into our storage on the patio. We should just sell them all. I could probably get fifty bucks for the whole box.
It's a big box.
Fifty bucks is a huge bargain for these videos.
Any takers out there?
Anyway....
On another topic my daughter is growing up way too fast.
I know it's crazy to think, that an almost 16 year old girl can actually think for herself, be her own person and not rely on the wisdom of a 50 year old who carried her in her womb for 9 months, changed her diapers, listened to her problems and gave her "mom-amazing" advice and watched her grow into this beautiful, funny, smart, caring, amazing young woman she's become.
She loves making Frappucinos in the blender. Ever since I found the recipe, my bags of ice, milk, chocolate syrup and chocolate chips have disappeared at a rapid pace these days. She also loves her Ramen noodles. She calls them RAH-mens I call them RAY-mens. I told her that's the right way to say it, because when you pray you say AY-men, not AH-men. She INSISTS she is saying it the correct way.
I digress.
She turns 16 next month.
That's right....SIXTEEN!!!
I cried yesterday about this. Actually I cried over the Dan and Shay concert we were suppose to attend at the T-Mobile arena yesterday that was cancelled due to that C word I am tired of hearing about. I cried because I wanted to buy her a T-shirt and we would share our first country concert together and dance all crazy and just have fun. I also cried because when my daughter was 13, and that's the first of many "big birthday moments", especially in a young girls life, not ONE of my friends or hers at the time could make it to celebrate her big day.
NOT...ONE.
Some of them were actual legitimate reasons. I got why most people couldn't come, but that didn't make it any less painful for either one of us, especially her. Clearly my daughter is not some Disney sensation, or a princess or a rock star, where everyone wants to come to her party, but she's my daughter and being my daughter she is MY princess, MY rock star and MORE.
I still made her a cake that Saturday and we lit candles and I took a pic of her holding that cake and blowing out the candles on that cake and posted them on Facebook and then after the last picture, she looked at me with tears in her eyes, and I looked at her and we both started to cry.
It hurt my heart that nobody, not one soul, could come, even for 10 minutes to sing and share cake with my daughter to celebrate the day she became a teenager. She curled up in my arms on the couch and she cried and I cried and I brushed her hair with my fingers and told her how sorry I was that nobody came.
Then we ate cake.
We played games.
She survived and so did I.
She is a strong young woman, I saw it in her at 13 and I see it even more now at almost 16.
I won't lie, it hurts to see her separate from me. But this is what daughters do. If she did everything I told her to do, she'd be a computer, or a robot, and that isn't what I want my daughter to be.
I want her to be an independent thinker.
I want her to be comfortable sharing her views, even if they clash with mine(or anyone else for that matter). I want her to know how to fix a flat, how to balance her bank account, and know how to get around at an airport and not panic when she is hiking and forgets which way to turn and she will know how to find her way back because of her awesome logic and self-taught knowledge of life and the world.
I want her to know that I love her regardless if down the road she is a democrat and I, a Republican, and we have different views. And even if we argue because of those differing views, I still love her regardless.
She will make choices I won't always agree with. But I have to let her fly a little and feel the consequences whether good or bad of those choices.
She is a smart cookie and boy does she have a logical brain in her head.
I remember one time we were in the store. I was upset because the mechanics who had just taken 540 some dollars of my hard earned money didn't fix my car. I was annoyed and complaining as we walked down the Ramen aisle and she says "well mom it's kind of like a doctor. Sometimes it takes a few tests before they figure out what's wrong with you. Same thing with your car."
I gave her a look.
Not a nice look either(I'm sure you've been there before).
There were two reasons I gave her that look...
1) She was suppose to be on MY SIDE, not the side of the mechanic.
2) What she said made absolute sense and her logical response was right.
(*raise your hand if one, or both, of these have applied to you)
Often parents want to be right....ALL THE TIME.
Listen up parents....no matter your age, 27, 57, 77....sometimes your kids know what they are talking about.
LISTEN TO THEM ONCE IN A WHILE.
Don't get mad at them for being right or having a different opinion than yours. Yes, as parents we can advise our children, but we also need to allow them the opportunity for independence and they can't do that if we are ALWAYS telling them what to do.
Don't go running around telling your best friend, or the lady at the supermarket, or your doctor how "I told her she should date Steven, but she chose to date Kevin and he's not good for her."
Maybe he's not.
But she isn't going to realize the good guy, if she never dates the one who is a giant tool. If she is only doing things to please you, she will never learn to please herself once in a while and know what it is that SHE wants or needs in her life and will be sorely disappointed as she grows older or will look to please someone else at the cost of her own self-worth and self-esteem and you don't want that either do you?
We want to protect our kids. But the thing is there is this fine line between protecting and smothering.
If you smother, you suck the life out of whatever trusting relationship you could have had, if you don't set boundaries and give some much-needed advice once in a while your kids will think they rule the roost and everyone must bow to their every whim and give them whatever they want no matter what the cost.
Balance.
Don't hover....gently guide.
Like a swan.
Clearly tell them the obvious...don't drink and drive don't do drugs, no sex before marriage, be kind to others, love your neighbor, worship God not material things.
My daughter and I use to be like Rory and Lorelai in Gilmore Girls.
We would joke about it and some friends of mine from work saw it too.
We had the same sense of humor, did the same stupid silly things, we hung around a lot with each other. She confided in me. I always told her she could come to me about ANYTHING...and she did. We were each other's best friend.
Then something happened.
We became more distant. She stopped telling me things. Stopped listening(Blog...not blocks silly girl LOLL..that's an inside joke)She started hanging out more in her room and less with me. She didn't get my jokes anymore.
We went out just yesterday shopping and it was fun.
But as she sat on the floor in the Psychology section of Barnes and Noble reading the little blurb on the back of a book titled "The Man Who Thought His Wife Was a Hat", it was in that moment I realized she isn't the same little girl anymore.
She is slowly growing up and I took a photo because these moments with her and I aren't as frequent as they use to be and sooner or later they may stop altogether for a little while.
Her beliefs are changing too.
It's scary.
I want to make her see how good God is, how being a Republican is right, how you don't need to destroy other people's property to protest and get your point across.
She has her own opinions. She is forming her own person.
It scares me.
But at the same time it makes me proud to be her mom. Because she won't ever have anyone tell her what to do without her being informed because she reads and investigates so much and wants to know facts versus what someone told her to be truth.
I once told her she could open a dog rescue and a daycare and that she could use the animals as therapy dogs for abused children or children with special needs. Because people use dogs for that very reason.
Know what she said?
I'll have to Google that.
????
Yeah. She didn't believe it simply because her mom told her it's true.
She had to Google it.
She is in her room now, door closed, eating her dinner and watching TikTok. I peeked in and asked her if she was talking to someone and she was just staring at me. We don't watch tv much anymore together like we use to...we would marathon watch Gilmore and Big Bang all ...the ...time.
One thing I DO know.....
She is still my best friend. Many times friends don't see each other for years and years, yet they still find that old connection they use to have, like time never passed.
I also know....
My girl is gonna go places. I know it. She is going to make it all around the world and do things that I only dreamed of doing. She is going to have trials and tribulations I am sure along the way...bumps in the road so to speak, but she will survive it, because my sweet, sweet girl is strong. She is gonna see the world and all it has to offer and (maybe) one day give me the gift of some beautiful grandkids.
I can't wait to hear the tales of her journeys, her loves and her losses, and I hope we can share them over an ice cold Frappucino with Gilmore Girls playing in the background.
