Baby, you're a firework

My baby girl - which I probably shouldn't call her anymore because she's nearly as tall as I am - has been struggling a bit of late. She's going to be an official tween at the end of this month, because that's what happens when you hit the double digits, and that means she's running headlong into self-esteem trauma prime time. Which sucks for her. And it sucks for me, too. Mostly because it breaks my heart to see my smart, strong, brave, beautiful girl think she is anything less than everything.

And yet she does.

Last weekend, she and I took a rare evening together, just the two of us, with absolutely no brothers allowed. We went to the annual Girl Scout sock hop. It's our third year at this mother-daughter dance fest. Lots of elementary aged girls and their moms in poodle skirts, rolled up jeans, and high ponytails.

This year my diva wanted to be a 1950s style tomboy, because she's a tomboy in real life, so she went for the jeans and loafers look. And then she asked for my pearls, as she has every year. A little touch of girl in her tomboy get-up.

She was nervous heading in, which is what pre-pubescence does to a girl. I was, too. Not because I'm pre-pubescent (thank goodness for that), but because I'm not always very comfortable with the girl stuff. I was never a tomboy, but once I hit puberty I just stopped getting the girl thing. It's like everyone else was speaking a language I didn't understand. And while I did eventually learn the language, I'm definitely not a native speaker.

But once we got there, she was good. She ran off with her friends for line dancing and root beer floats and giggly conversation.

The evening flew by, and finally the deejay played his last song, Katy Perry's "Firework." Every girl at the hop ran into the room, crowding in front of the stage. And they erupted in song, fists in the air, singing out with the passion of youth and the total understanding that who they are is more than good enough.

You just gotta ignite the light and let it shine
Just own the night like the Fourth of July
'Cause baby you're a firework
Come on show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go oh, oh, oh
As you shoot across the sky

This room full of girls, each of them as smart and strong and brave and beautiful as my diva, was shouting their worth out proudly to the world.

It was a moment, just a moment, of watching my diva know for herself that she can do anything, be anything, be everything. A moment of joy and confidence and reveling in the power of being a girl.

It's in there, all that strength and poise and power. And when she's ready, she'll share it with the world.

Love and the art of being late

My kids tease me mercilessly for my utter lack of timeliness. I am late for everything. Which is a problem if you're a kid going to basketball practice. Or to chorus. Or, well, anywhere.

When you add that little personality quirk to a major holiday like, oh, say, Christmas, with its very many opportunities to be late, it becomes a nightmare of 2 a.m. cookie baking, crazy Christmas Eve day shopping sprints, and overnight wrapping marathons. It's expensive and exhausting.

And it didn't happen this year.

I don't know if it was the impetus of my latest new au pair heading home mid-month, and taking all my childcare with her, or if it was my sister very nearly begging off Christmas because of the never-ending holiday chaos at my house. But something snapped. And suddenly I was on time.

I finished my shopping a full 10 days before Christmas. And snagged some pretty awesome sales, too.

I had the cookies mixed and baked for my diva's holiday party three days early.

And the wrapping was done on the eve of Christmas Eve. Still an overnight marathon, but it meant I slept - mostly - on Christmas Eve proper. Which made for a much more friendly mom when the kids woke me up before dawn on Christmas Day.

I was still late for a handful of Christmasy things, some of them important. Like Peabo's school holiday party. Though I can legitimately blame that on the onlay that broke the day before (mind you, I was on time to the dentist). Of my three, Peabo is - not surprisingly - the one with the least ability to manage the whole "late mom" thing. He always knows what time it is and is constantly adjusting our clocks. Schedules matter to him. They matter a lot. So does being on time.

But, as I told him between gentle apologies, love means taking someone as they come, faults and all. Even if that someone never really knows what time it is.


Love. Forgiveness. Understanding. Isn't that what Christmas is all about?

Though being on time does help.

Whaddya know? Post number 37! Only 20 more to go before the end of the year ...

21 posts

The last two New Year's ... New Year'ses? New Years? Eh. The last two Eves (see, that works), I've put together a "done list" that talks about the things that got done in the year preceding. It's meant to provide a sense of accomplishment in the face of a daunting, multi-year, to-do list.

Each year my done list includes the number of blog posts I've published. And in case you haven't kept track along with me (and can't see the little archive that appears on the right side of this page), I published 57 posts each in 2009 and 2010. Some kind of weird record in consistency that I promise was not at all planned.

Not this year. This year, I published a scant 35 posts. Until this one goes up. Then it will be 36.

Which is 21 short. And entirely lame.

It's not that I wasn't doing other, deeply legitimate things. I was. Managing my kids, who've had a bit of a rough year. Managing yet another au pair transition, because our lovely, as yet tattoo-free German missed her family and decided to go home 7 months early. Managing work, and one of the biggest projects of my career. And managing my health and my house and my finances.

You know. Living.

I heard on the radio today - which I was listening to in the morning, so you can't really trust what I'm about to tell you - but I heard that if you want to keep your New Year's resolutions, you need to make just one. And you need to forgive yourself and start over if you break it. Which is kind of like how the whole diet/fitness/health thing works. So you'd think I'd be familiar.

And maybe this will be my resolution. To find my bloggy inspiration again. Because I miss the writing.

I miss it a lot.