Looking Back

She stepped out of the car, head held high and enough confidence to last a lifetime.  Or maybe just enough to walk through the doors for her first day of high school.  Last August, after a delayed start to the school year, I sent my first born girl off to begin her high school career.  And this week, that first year comes to an end.  I've watched my girl grow, sort through friendships that were going nowhere, make new friends, learn, complain about homework, laugh, cry and make memories that I hope she never forgets.  I hope her memories are good enough to last a lifetime.  The kind you never want to forget. 
She entered her freshman year of high school, barely 14 years old.  Now in a month she will be 15 and ready to start learning to drive.  Another new adventure.  She's proven that she will work hard to get where she wants to be.  She sets high expectations for herself and is her own worst critic.  She's a perfectionist with the biggest heart ever.  She's loyal, loving and caring.  She's also outspoken.  She's having to learn to temper that outspoken spirit with tact. 
I'm proud of who she is.  She's by no means perfect.  But she has a lot of good qualities.  I hope she will always strive to be the best person she can be.  Not the best person that someone else expects her to be.  I hope she goes outside of her comfort zone sometimes.  I hope when she fails, she picks herself up and keeps going.  I hope when she succeeds, she accepts success with humility.  I hope she finds happiness, love and peace.  Most of all, I hope she strives to please her Savior.  In so doing, her life will be blessed, she will always be on the right path and she will find what He has in store for her.
August feels like a lifetime away right now.  But it will be here all too soon.  And I will watch as she enters the doors at school to begin another year of high school.  If the next 3 years goes as fast as the past year, I might just cry.  Each year as I drop both girls off for their first day of school, my mantra is "I will not cry".  I may need to find a new mantra. 

**And I have not forgotten my baby girl.  A post about her school year coming soon.  My heart can only take so much at once.

Freedom of Speech

What started as a simple, lighthearted post on Facebook by my 14 year old daughter, expressing her opinion, turned into a simple, ugly battle.  Silly?  Somewhat.  But it made me think.  We all know how dangerous it is when I think!
My daughter posted that she "loved" the class shirt.  She hoped they could do better next year.  Obviously this was sarcasm.  She didn't love the shirt.  She bought it though.  Because she wanted to have a class shirt from each year of high school.  Ugly or not.  It wasn't ugly, it simply made fun of their own class.  The front said "Cool Story Freshmen" and the back said "Now Go Back to the Annex".  At my daughter's school the freshmen are in a separate building although they do go to the main building for some classes.  From my understanding only 21 shirts were bought.  The bare minimum to be able to order them.  Tells me that my daughter's opinion was shared by many.  There was a comment or two from a 10th grader that their 9th grade shirts were bad too.  9th grade is where they're trying to get use to things and that hopefully next year they would have a good student council and the shirts would be better.  And then the president of the student council chimed in.  He told my daughter she was rude.  That "X" had worked hard on the shirt and my daughter should support it not criticize it.  I had many problems with his post.  First my daughter wasn't rude.  IMO.  She did support them by buying a shirt.  But mainly I had a problem with the fact that it seemed as though he wanted to make sure everyone knew he didn't design this shirt.  The way he worded it though looked as though he had his friend's back.  I ask him if he was giving her all the credit or all the blame.  Because he should have said WE all worked hard on it.  He got snippy and made ugly comments and unfriended my daughter and a few others who called him out.  My daughter had already told him that if he didn't like her expressing her opinion on her facebook page to unfriend her.  Her life didn't revolve around the number of facebook friends she had.  And I should add that he didn't buy a shirt himself.  And two days earlier had commented on the shirt and how he didn't like it.  As the president he signed off on the design.  One of my daughter's good friends is on the student council and spoke his mind.  One of his best friends got angry with him and says it has ruined their friendship.  How good of a friend was she?  To allow him speaking his mind, in a tactful manner, ruin a friendship.
Yes this is teenage drama.  But it had life lessons in it.  Sometimes when you express your opinion other people will get mad.  We should try to say what we need to say or want to say, tactfully.  We should never hurt others in the process of expressing our own opinion.  Get to know your friends well.  Often times they are enemies masquerading as our friends.  And they will turn on us quickly. 
I hope both of my daughters will always stand up for themselves.  I hope they will never let others intimidate them into speaking their mind.  I just hope they do so gracefully.  I hope they remember the golden rule of treating others the way you want to be treated.

Behind Closed Doors

Before my oldest daughter started school, I gave her the "talk" that I assume most parents give their kids.  Be nice.  Treat others the way you want to be treated.  Don't hit or fight or tattle.  But don't be a doormat either.  You know the "talk" I'm referring to, right?  In our area, they had a few kids come in each day for the first week or two(it's been a long time and I can't remember EVERY detail).  My daughter goes off for her first day of school.  As I anxiously await picking her up I dream of conversations about how the day was wonderful and she already met her best friend.  Instead what I heard was "I had a good day.  A little girl kicked me.  We played outside."   Did I hear her correctly?  Her first day of school and someone kicked her?  So I ask if someone kicked her.  She said yes, a mean girl.  I had to think for a few minutes as to how to react.  Because Momma Tiger was waking up and having fleeting thoughts of finding this other kindergartner and having a "TALK" with her.  But I had given my daughter advise on how to behave and now I had to be that example.  So I thought for a minute and ask if my daughter had done anything to this girl to cause her to kick her.  She said no.  I ask if it was maybe an accident.  Maybe the girl was swinging and my daughter walked too close and she kicked her.  Again she said no, she's just mean.  My daughter had already formed this opinion of the girl.  And who could blame her really.  But I knew I needed to use this experience to help my daughter grow. That meant no bashing the 5 year old "mean girl".  So I told my daughter that the little girl shouldn't have kicked her.  But she still needed to be nice to her although she had done this.  My daughter looked at me confused.  I told her that we never know what goes on in someone else's home.  Maybe they have a parent who takes drugs or gets drunk.  Maybe they are abused.  Maybe one of their parents is very sick and the child is angry at this.  There could be a million things going on behind the closed door of a home.  Wouldn't we feel bad if any of these situations were true and we hadn't been forgiving and kind?  My daughter shook her head yes.  And assured me she would be nice.  She said "maybe she just needs a friend".  As time went on throughout my daughter's kindergarten year of school, she reported back to me several times about this girl.  She never kicked my daughter again.  My daughter played with her during recess and talked to her and they had an acquaintance type friendship.  The girl had a speech problem and as it turns out was adopted.  We don't know if any of this is why she came to school and on day 1 kicked someone.  But we like to think maybe it was and maybe she wasn't really a mean girl after all. 

Fast forward to my oldest daughter's 9th grade chorus banquet just a few days ago.  They recognize and say good bye to their chorus seniors.  Each senior is given a chance to say whatever they would like.  One young man takes his turn and says "I would like to thank my grandmother and grandfather for being here for me.  I don't know what I would do without them."  From the audience we hear, "we don't know what we would do without you".  The young man continues and says "my grandfather had cancer and now has it again.  They took me and my brother in about a year ago.  Saved us from a bad situation.  From our mom".  The grandfather made his way up front to hug his grandson, with tears in both their eyes.  In fact  I don't think there was a dry eye in the room.  I don't know this young man at all.  He looked "normal" (for lack of a better word).  He acted "normal".  And here he was a few days away from graduating from high school.  He's going to make it.  His story made me think about how we really don't know the story of each person we come into contact with.  We don't know what life they live behind the closed door of their home.  A young lady thanked her grandmother who was always there for her.  And her aunt who went on field trips with her.  Never did she mention a mother or father.  Again I don't know the story.  But my heart broke over and over as these young people shared bits of their story, their life.

We all have a story.  We all live different lives.  We should never assume we know what others go through.  Maybe we shouldn't assume a person is mean, rude or aggressive just because they want to be.  Oh I'm sure those people are out there.  But before we write them off and push them off of our path of life, should we get to know them?  Maybe our kindness, our friendship, our good example will encourage them, help them or at least cause them to think before they act.  Or maybe, just maybe we could help them take hold of the hand of Jesus.  Where they will find refreshment for their soul.

Dreams

I've often heard that you should have a dream and pursue it.  In my life I've found that I've often fulfilled a dream I never knew I had.  Like being a mom.  I wasn't like many of my friends who as young girls and teens talked about growing up and having a house full of kids.  They spoke of their dreams of being a mom.  But not me.  In fact I didn't even like playing with dolls much.  I was a skate boarder, bike rider and tree climbing kind of girl.  My dreams?  I don't know.  I lived in the moment and never really set goals for myself.  I do remember wanting to be finished with school as soon as possible and be an adult.  I wanted to be independent and have no one telling me what to do.  Nice, huh?  But as I got older I knew I wanted to find a soul mate, a husband.  And I did.  Find a husband, at least.  Soul mate?  Oh no.  But my marriage served a purpose.  It taught me lessons that I desperately needed to learn.  It helped me grow into the person I am today.  The good and bad.  And eventually as an adult my dream was to have kids.  And so I did.  And it wasn't until I went through 42 weeks of pregnancy and gave birth to my first child that I realized my dream had come true.  Even then it took a while for me to realize that being a mom is what fulfills me.  And I wished I had done it a lot sooner and had that house full of kids.  But God's ways are better than my ways and he knows me and knew me then.  He knew that waiting until I was older would cause me to appreciate my kids and he knew my patience would grow.  And oh how it needed to grow.  He gave me those blessings at the time in my life when I would need it most. 
Yes my dream came true.  The one I didn't even know I had.  Mom.  The best title in the world.  Thank you Lord for knowing me better than I've ever known myself.