7:47 a.m. - 2007-08-31
Cross Roads
After listening to my 14-year old with her friends yesterday talk in our living room about boys, I could only smile as I read my book. They have just started high school and the only thing they are worried about is not finding their classes, or whom do you sit with at lunch but - boys! Do you think he will like this lip gloss, do you think he will notice me when I walk by his locker, do you think my jeans make my butt look big? Trying to be helpful, I tried to give some advice and received a very certain and clear cry.....
Mom, you don't know anything.
And as they continued with visions of what it might be like to have a boy look their way...
My minds eye made me go back and visit that place. And if you are a parent you know of it. And if not, I can say it is a place you didn't think of when it was happening because you were so stressed out, and in my case of real lack of money and tired beyond belief. But now you tend to visit it more and more and especially at times like these.
memories....
My baby, my sweet girl, my very purpose. Feeling her move inside of me for the first time, my angel who almost died, her surgery and everything associated with it, loving her like I never loved before or after, putting bows in her blonde curly hair, cleaning her dirty face in the high chair after her favorite blueberry dessert, the songs of Barney and If all the World was Apple Pie, sitting in the car seat spilling cheerios and sippy cups all over my new car and never caring, walking her to pre-school and her hand not wanting to let go, then to big girl school and having her hand leave mine freely, dancing in the rain, window shopping at Old Orchard, baking cookies and eating them as we went along, sitting up with her when she was sick, looking for Pooh and Piglet in the nearby forest preserves and having her convince me that we would find them, finding seashells on the beaches of Sanibel Island, grapes, meeting Julie Andrews and having Julie say "Girl's Are Smarter Than Boys" to my daughter and not to forget that, cheerleading, performing theater, service projects with the Girl Scouts, winning awards for humanitarian efforts, not making teams, being a great student.
This is my baby, my one and only sweet baby who now is upon another crossroad in life. A cross road that will be filled with many joys and disappointments. A place that is telling her that maybe boys aren't so bad after all. I can say that I will guide her through this foreign place with the best of my abilities. And I will do my best to protect her.
I smile because as she says, Mom you don't know anything...and for once she is right.
