My little love angel....a mom's journey to provide self-confidence to her daughter.

I am writing to remember this because I hope that one day I can reflect on the strong, resilient, confident woman Laynie will become and laugh about incidences such as these that cause me to worry so much!  We went to our first Girl Scouts meeting last Friday.  Once we arrived, Laynie immediately clung to my leg and didn't want to venture out with the other girls, who had already all aggregated together and were happily playing together (of course....we arrived LATE!  It just wouldn't be me if we were ever on time!)  After a few minutes, she spotted her "BFF" from school and ran over to me to share this joyous news.  Of course, I did have a moment of pause when I saw that this BFF didn't seem to feel the same amount of joy Laynie did at realizing that they were both going to be in the same troop, but I thought she was just playing and would warm up to Laynie once a few minutes passed.  In fact, I could hardly pay attention at the meeting because I couldn't stop watching Laynie's interaction with this little girl.  The little girl was so blatantly ignoring Laynie it was silly, and what made it worse was that Laynie just kept on following her all over the place, trying to start a conversation, lavishing compliments on the girl, you name it.  At one point the little girl even called Laynie's name until she looked up from what she was doing, and then when Laynie started to go over to her, she walked away.  I tried directing Lane to play with some of the other girls that were at the park, whether they were in our G/S troop or not....anything to make her stop following this girl around!  But my baby is very determined when it comes to a friend treating her badly.  She will pursue that person to no end to try to get them to "like" her or treat her well.  It was so hard to watch.  Anyway, a few moments later, Laynie ran over to ask if she could go on the swings with the other girls.  As she ran over to join the others, her little friend sort of paused and held her hand out to Laynie and I silently breathed a sigh of relief thinking "She waited for her."  After a few seconds of talking, the girl proceeded on to the swings, but Laynie came back towards our table.  I got lost in the conversation of the troop leader for a minute, and looked up again only to see Laynie carrying the little girl's SHOES to her.  I jumped up from the table to ask her what she was doing.  She said "She asked me if I would get her shoes for her."  I felt like crying.   I did cry.  I told her to put the shoes down and tell her friend to come get them herself.  Had this been a random act of kindness of Laynie, fine.  Had this been a reciprocation of some earlier kindness shown to Laynie by the girl, fine.  But this?  The girl ignored her for a good hour and then only paid attention to her to request her to get her shoes?!?!?  I didn't know what to do.  Since there didn't seem to be anything to do, I just brushed it off since I didn't let her get the shoes for her.  Laynie continued following her around the park playground.  After awhile, Laynie asked if she could go climb on this mountain-y thing with the girl and some of the others.  I let her, but with some trepidation as there was a recent random act of violence in Las Vegas in which a young girl was murdered while walking home alone, and I wasn't going to be able to see her on the mountain thing.  After a few minutes, I couldn't stand that I wasn't able to see her, and had pretty much had enough of seeign all this by now, so I went over and carried her shoes to her to tell her it was time to go.  Laynie is deathly afraid of heights, so when I went over to get her, she was up on the mountain on her hands and knees crawling slowly while her "friend" was nowhere to be found.  Laynie needed me to help her down and she said "Mama, I'm so glad you came to get me.  I was so scared up there."  When I asked her why she had climbed up there knowing she was afraid, she said "She wanted me to."  How can it be that this loving, kind ,beautiful, smart little girl I have can be so easily persuaded by peer pressure already?  I am constantly questioning myself and whether or not I provide Laynie constant affirmations of her self-confidence and self-worth.  If she knew she was all the things I listed above and more, why would she continue to seek out the friends who don't treat her right?  I'm at a loss.  I ache for my girls and all that there is to come in the way of relationships with other girls.  I knew it would come someday, but at 5 years old?

School days, school days.......

Laynie has officially started school.  I can hardly believe 5 years have gone by so fast and my little baby is now a big girl.  I feel a little guilty for sending her to all-day Kindergarten when I am a stay at home mom, but I am confident that I made the right choice in doing so.  Many teachers have reassured me that all-day kinder is the way to go (for those that can afford paying $325 a month for their PUBLIC education!) and she seems to love it so far, so my mind has been put to rest.  My heart?  That's another story.  I walked away that first day of school feeling great.  She seemed happy when I left her, (didn't she?) and I am happy to have a little more time for some one on one with Frankie and Gabi, but as I started to drive away, I was so overcome with emotion!  When I pulled back in the garage, I immediately began to miss her and the countdown began to 3:26 when I could hurry to pick her up.  It didn't make it any easier to walk around the house that day and see her million and one notes to me.  She is really getting good with her writing and constantly wants to practice, so we go through a ream of paper pretty often.  Anyway, if this little babe of mine doesn't write at least three times a day a note that says "Mom I love you" or a heart with "Mom" in it or some other profession of her love for me, I would be shocked!  I love my little BFF. So everywhere I looked were all these love notes from her to me, and the house seemed so quiet (Then Frankie started her daily ritual screaming and I was brought back to my LOUD reality)!  Today marks the end of her first full week, and we have made it.  I can hardly wait for this weekend to be able to see her all day long, until Sunday night when I'm sure I'll be ready for school again.  =)