Today I had quite a shocking deer in the headlights kind of realization…it was certainly an eye-opener for me. Yes, I am usually quite preoccupied with changing diapers, cleaning up chip crumbs off the floor and keeping the toddlers from seriously injuring each other…but DAMN!! When the hell did my tween grow boobs??
Now listen….I know she’s been growing, and last week was her first visit from Aunt Martha….ok, you may know her as Aunt Flo, but she’s always been Aunt Martha to me. She’s never been much of a girlie-girl. (My tween, not Aunt Martha) She’s mostly been into playing with caterpillars, or using her metal detector to find treasures in the front yard, or even going to the creek and fishing…all on her own.
Last birthday she turned 12. Her sweetness is still there although often it’s hidden beneath the raging adolescent hormonal swings.
She hasn’t had a boyfriend yet. She says, “I don’t know who likes me.” She has said, “Don’t worry, Mom…I like boys…” Yikes!
She still gets the giggles with her BFF over silly stuff which is good in my eyes. There is no reason to grow up too quickly. In fact, if she chose to play with babydolls instead of “meeting up with friends” I would be ecstatic!!
She can put her step-father in his place faster than I can account for why there are 25 empty Caribou cups in my garage!! The thing is, when she is putting him in his place, she’s usually correct!! Ohhhhh, how scary that is! And quite awkward for me if I might add.
She’s a great kid….honestly. I’m not just saying that because she’s mine. She has been through more than any 12 year old should have to go through.
She was 3, almost 4, when I lost my baby, Nathan, at 36 weeks gestation. After all the pumping up of her to be the big sister and how awesome that was going to be….WHACK! All of it taken away in an instant…for no reason. And if anyone ever tells you that she would have been too young to even remember or understand what was going on at the time…they are wayyyyy wrong! She got it…she understood….and her little heart grieved right along with mine.
And if you think she forgot about it easily because she was so young….think again, because several short months later we were driving and she hollers out, “Look, Mommy!!! Up there!! It’s my Nathan in the sky, flying with angels!!!” And she meant every flippin word she said. Absolutely amazing….
She’s lost pets…the first one she lost was her hamster…well, ok, so she basically smooshed the life out of him herself, but that’s neither here nor there. (shhhhh…..don’t ever repeat that because she was young enough that I did not want her to have that on her conscience!) She’s lost another hamster since then….well, sort of…..he remains in a box in the freezer downstairs because it was winter when he died so the ground was too frozen to bury him (in 2006)………ohshutup….
She’s also lost 2 dogs, one of which was the head of her “club” when she was 4 years old. She lost her Grandmother, my mother, when she was 6 years old. This was her “Bammy Mary”…and she will forever be missed. She still talks about how her Bammy would rock her, and they would share “eye to eye” where they put their eyes real close and bat their eyelashes together.
The worst of all her losses occurred in 2005 (only 8 months after Bammy Mary passed away). Her father was killed in a freak accident. I won’t go into too much detail in this post, all I will say is that she was with me when we found him, and even though her brain was too young to truly understand what she was seeing, and even though she does not talk about the incident all that much, I am sure somewhere in her mind it’s there….and I hope and pray it won’t come out to bite her in her future.
All I can hope is that she can and does talk with me about her feelings and fears. I know she is a strong person for having gone through what she’s been through. Shortly after her father passed away I told her it was ok to talk about him, remember him…embrace the memories, so to speak. Do you know what this sweet child said to me at that time?? She said, “I don’t have to talk about him. He’s in my heart. And I don’t want to make you sad.”
Tears are a good thing even when they come because of a loss. They are a release of what you can’t put into words. And that is what I hope my first born has come to learn.
We’ve had our ups and our downs but we’ve done it together. We have a bond that cannot be broken…and cannot be compared to any other.
Yes, this is quite a sappy post, but today when she got home from school she was in her room for a while…not bothering anyone. Apparently she was fixing her hair and make up, and came out looking like this:
Honestly…isn’t she gorgeous?? How did this happen?? WHEN did this happen?? Did it happen over-night?? I swear, just yesterday she looked like this:
Ok…maybe not…But I could swear about a month ago she looked like this:
My point is, I’ve been fighting with my laptop for several weeks now freezing up on me whenever it feels like it. The correlation?? I would like for TIME to freeze…..NOT my freakin laptop!!
There are so many tragedies out there, and I am feeling blessed. I have my first born…and now I have 2 toddlers….as a Mom all I can hope for is that I provide for them what is needed, and I’m not talking about material things. I want them to know happiness and love and understanding and compassion….
I want them to grow up and know that I am always there for them no matter what happens. I want them to look back on their childhood and know that when things weren’t all that great, it was for a reason. When I had to say “NO!” it was for a damn good reason. I hope they grow up, move out, and come back often for visits. And most of all,
I hope they don’t put me in a nursing home and forget about me I hope they learn to trust that my love for them is unconditional….forever and ever.
Hug your children today. Play with them today. Read them books even though they are asking you to read the same one over and over and over. Slow down and take the time to color a picture with them. And
for Pete’s sake, take notice when they grow boobs so you aren’t as shocked as I was!!
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