My older daughter and I are similar in so many ways. When I see her, I see me, even though she is a picture of her dad. In terms of her personality, she is most likely me. We connect most on our love of food and cooking, and we are both empaths. She is thoughtful and kind and has a strong sense of right and wrong. Her ability to stand up for herself and advocate for what she needs is admirable, but a skill that took some time to develop, as she was shy at times. She makes others feel welcomed and is a great friend. She is all around an amazing human.
So it goes without saying that I love spending time with her. She loves taking walks, so on Sunday, we made time for a walk in our beautiful neighborhood park. Well, it was more like a run walk, since we are getting ready to participate in a 5K race, where I am her buddy. I am nervous, I won't lie, but I am prepared to take on this challenge for the little human who gave me the title of Mom. This is all part of her after school program that aims to inspire girls to discover, build and grow their self-confidence through running. Even though it has been challenging for her, she is not giving up and I know that having me run with her is going to motivate her even more.
It was such a beautiful day and as soon as we both got out of the car, we were ready to run, but first we stretched. Then we started our run. Since I am newer to running, I've been doing an even count of running and walking respectively in order to pace myself. I need it so that I am not fully out of air. We took our time to make it around the park as we talked about everything from school, friends, activities she might be interested in and anything else that she wanted to talk about. It was beautiful seeing her in her element.
We then started talking about a classmate that she has been having some difficulty with. She finds her to be quite unkind and rude at times. We talked about how that made her feel and how she has been handling the situation. There have have prior conversations about her to me. I asked her what she thought was the best way to continue handling this situation when her classmate says certain things to illicit some creative ideas. We then proceeded into role play about how she can respond to her. As we talked through it, she was happy with my suggestions. I reminded her that some people seek attention whether it is good or bad, and the best way to solve this problem is to starve her meanness of attention. The less you pay attention to her, the more she will hopefully leave you alone.
As we kept walking, we noticed the pasture in the distance where the horses and cows were grazing along with the beautiful autumn leaves that were on the trees along our path. We hugged each other and held hands as we continued our stroll. My heart felt so full in that moment. Part of me looks forward to the amazing person that she will be, and the other part wants her to not grow up. What I do know is that I treasure these tiny moments more than she will ever know. As we walked over to the car, she asked for a pumpkin spice boba. How can I ever say no to that?
( Photo credit: Feature image Getty Images)
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