Doing swimmingly

I am off today and curious to see how well I spend my time. It is going to be a pretty day so I will want to be out in in it but most of the things I really need to do are not out in it.  🙂

The Babe is going through some rough waters right now. God, I love her.  This is nothing new to girlhood and girlhood is nothing new to me, we will persevere. These aren’t her first swimming lessons are they? This is probably the part where moms of boys say that boys are easier to raise, but I wouldn’t miss this for the world. I don’t know if girls are more complex or not, never having had a boy, and I don’t suppose it matters one way or the other.  All I know is that being the mom of a young lady is humbling, and awe inspiring. I have learned more about me from each one of them. 

"It isn’t actually yourself that you hate, Sweety, it is the choice you made that you hate." 

Let’s call it what it is. Sometimes we disappoint ourselves. I hope to guide her right past the years of self loathing that it took me sludging through to find that none of that was actually about who I am.  She is more focused right now then she has ever been on being in the habit of making right choices and about caring about the consequences of her actions.  The boundaries are no different then they have been in the past but her slacker mom is actually delivering the consequences.  Of course this pinpointing of infractions has her feeling as though she were under a microscope and she doesn’t like what she sees. Now as slackermom it is my job to balance all of that with positive reinforcement and and a building her up to see who she really is.

The more I enforce the boundaries, the happier she is. Well, in between times anyway. So I have been grabbing those moments to get out the microscope and show her The Babe that I see.  Last night in the throes of despair about a poor choice that she made I pointed out that she has been mostly happy and that as she works on being in the habit of making better choices she will like what she sees more and more. 

"See, it really isn’t you that you hate. The more you develop good habits the happier you will be about who you are because making good choices will get easier and easier."  We used sock putting on as an example. Her first attempts at putting on a sock were ackward and clumsy but the more she did it the easier it got and now it is a habit she doesn’t even have to think about. She just puts on her socks.

I don’t know about you guys but I now have some habits I’d like to go form.  

See JeniDancer, I’m so serious. I am actually the student here. Thank you Lord for my many lovely teachers.

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In Sandy soil I plant this seed, If even only I do heed.

In death is life; won’t be denied, grown by tears of sorrow cried.

The truth is harsh, the babes are dead, I’ll hold mine closer in their stead.

It’s all I have and know to do. I don’t admit those lives are through.

I will not waste this plot of land, it will not wither ‘neath my hand.

Come here my Love, look in my eyes,

Do you know how dear you are to me….?