Dear Ittybit,
You don't mind hanging out with dad, but you prefer activities that don't involve grease and grime.
You're looking more and more grown up lately.
You've started asking me to check your face for remnants of food or other smudges. "Is anything on my face? Are you sure?"
The fight over combing/washing/taming your hair is over. You find the brush and you sit as still as I wrestle snarls and snags. I imagine soon you won't need my help to make your hair silky and smooth.
How many times had you gone to school last year with errant hair and a breakfast-marked face?
I didn't fight you to look presentable. We aren't really presentable people.
But you are noticing now. Determining not to look disheveled.
I see you studying your face in the mirror. Looking for imperfections.
People are starting to tell me that you and I look a lot alike. She is like your Mini Me, they say.
I recoil a little, and tell them I don't see it. I remember thinking how I reacted when I was a teenager and people told me I looked like my mother. I didn't want to see it. I was NOT my mother.
I know that in too few years, she won't smile when someone makes the comparison.
But it's impossible not to feel humbled inside. And it puts the flaws you hold as self evident when someone tells you your daughter, who is beautiful, looks just like you.
With love and European kisses,
Mommy
2 comments:
She looks as if she is dreaming of somewhere far away. Beautiful...just like her mother.
Yes… If one remembers from psychology 101, it is the development of the “ID”, unlike Silas, who is still at the I, me, mine, stage…Annabel is now confronted with a social network there at school, and how she (the ID) is presented to others and their acceptance of.
A simple fact that another schoolmate may not want to play with her with her mornings meal still on her face can be an important realization of how others perceive her. She is also learning how this simply corrected barrier could prevent others from looking deeper into what she is as a person…as she truly is a compassionate and loving child.
If her peers could only see past the egg on her face and take notice as to how much time and effort she invests into creating each and every valentines card she crafts, by hand from her own heart, and the resourcefulness of her own mind, especially in a time when the same product can easily be bought by the thousands at the local retail outlet and than sent with a simple note…But they are learning as well and until they actually try to create such items, they will be oblivious to the task and care involved.
Oh yes little miss Ittybit, be aware of how you are perceived by others so they may take the time to take a longer look into your heart…but “DO” beware, as jealously may be a result of your efforts…
...but that is another lesson, one I’m sure you will adjust to with the help and love of your family and true friends.
I myself had never had a problem with food on my face as a child, but I’ll tell you a secrete…my shirtsleeves look like a biological health hazard from the days meals and other excrement.
Not recommended but when in a clinch, use the sleeve.
Later...
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