mending relationships

My oldest and I constantly butt heads.  There's a good reason...she's exactly like me.  I had so much fun as a kid and teenager...but apparently I was bossy and took the spotlight away from others... didn't really catch that until college.  Of course, by then I also realized that the people I "took the spotlight from" were so passive that the spotlight wouldn't stay on them very long...and I guess I didn't see the point to ignoring it. Example: Flirting. Apparently I was a huge flirt. Of course, I have 4 brothers and was always ALWAYS way more comfortable about boys...so I guess that could be seen as flirting. My roommates were always so shy and never asked guys out. I always was asking guys to go out or just hang out.  My roommates were so annoyed with me. But it was my personality.

ANYWAY... Talia has the same personality and sometimes I catch my self pushing it down.  Her sister was dancing for me on the video camera the other night and Talia kept doing something to get in the picture.  ANNOYING... but she wanted the spotlight too...unfortunately what she failed to remember was that Tabitha HATES the spotlight...so ANY chance I get to video her or take a picture is WONDERFUL!

Those are just little examples. Basically I have been getting annoyed by seeing me in her. Sad.

She is such a good kid. She tries so hard. She LOVES riding her bike and would all day if we'd let her. She has struggled at school this year and has an attitude to match recently.

We went on a date the other night and it was much needed. Just ice-cream at Culvers...but MUCH needed time to just be together, alone, and talk...except for the annoying bus-boy who kept bugging us with his life story...

We went to dominicks for groceries and we picked up these huge water guns ($1.25!).  She discovered that if you put them on your body and "squirted them" you could make a huge farting noise...so guess what she did all through dominicks? It was HILARIOUS! And then we did it in parking lot...in the car...at home...and on and on.  We had so much fun. I love being her mom. SHe is such  fun kid and I need to desperately remember that. Always.  She has such an imagination.

She commissioned me to build her a tent out of a box...she even used the rest of her money $8 to pay for the duct tape! It was a miserable fail that only lasted a few days... but she had envisioned her and her friends sitting in it, playing games, and catching bugs.  She finally has a friend...Jaeda.. .here in the complex. I like her. She's sweet and good.  She's a little passive, so I'm trying to remind (gently) Talia to not tell her to do everything just because she will... we're working on that one (KINDLY!).  But they race and ride their bikes together for 2 hours every day.

The other day they had a game going where they ride towards each other and then high-fived. THey even had a sheet to check off when they did it good and when it was wrong :) Goofy kids.  I'm glad she has a friend.

We are all trying to yell less...talk sweeter to each other. Hard when you're in a tight space with no room to breath without feeling your hot air bounce off some other body.

Anyway, the two of us have a long way to go but we're working on it.  Svend and I have been watching this new show called focal point... I bawled (and couldn't stop) the other night when a girl was kidnapped for 8 years and believed her captor that he had talked to her parents and they told him to take her so she could be safe.  The reason I cried so much? What would it take a child to believe such a lie. Why not their grandparents or a FRIEND take them? why would their parents have a complete stranger take them? I wondered if my children would believe such a lie.  Would they remember that I loved them so much that I would never do that to them? It just TORE at my heart and I couldn't stop crying.

Mending relationships is a must right now.