Daughters are fascinating creatures, especially for moms. They are beautiful. They are frightening. They are like the weather in Nebraska
It’s scary to see so much of ourselves in our girls. Particularly when what you see are some of the things you would rather she wouldn’t have inherited. But it is wonderful, at the same time, when moms see that our daughters have taken what they are given and have made the best out of it.
I can not believe that I could have given birth to this tall athlete. She is currently two inches taller than I am. And I am pretty sure I am full grown. She’s definitely got her dad’s athletic abilities. I was a terrible athlete. They would stick me in at goalie for soccer and put the best player in as defender to make up for it. I was always the last one picked for teams. I was all skin and bones and pop-bottle glasses.
Mandy, however, loves to barrel down the field after the soccer ball, jostling and elbowing girls for control of the ball. She used to be timid on the field, but has recently discovered that little spark that makes her want to win. Every soccer season she scores a couple of goals, driving her back for more. She doesn’t score every game, but she keeps pushing herself in the hopes that she will.
And volleyball, well, Mandy is starting to love to hit. Last night the coach’s wife told me Mandy had some awesome hits at practice. She told me this three times. That’s fantastic. Most volleyball teams Mandy plays for, she plays middle hitter because of her height (she’s 5’8’’ at age 13). As other girls start to catch up, she will probably change over to outside hitter. She also is a great passer. The head guy at her volleyball club moved her up to his number two team because he discovered she is a good passer. Evidently if you are tall and can hit, you generally can’t pass. She’s good at both, so that is awesome. On the drive home from practice, she has been so excited that she is learning to hit harder and harder and that her serves go over the net. It is so much fun to watch her do well at the things she loves. I hope she can continue to improve and she can continue to be a good sportsman.
But she’s got a lot of her mom in her too. The girl can talk. Every team she is on, she’s Miss Congeniality. Mandy easily makes friends. I suppose part of that is the result of going to a small school in which she has only one other girl in her class. If she wants friends, she has to make them. I drop her off at a sports camp where she knows no one, and by the end of the week she has a gaggle of new friends she messages via Facebook every day. Mandy is the girl on the team who is the first to welcome new players, is the first to slap someone a high five for a good play, and is the first to pat them on the back when they mess up. She also has a lot of “best” friends. Currently she splits her time with three best friends, going to football games, going to the park, and going to the mall.
Strangely, all of these best-friend activities involve checking out boys. It is one of the biggest past times in her life right now outside of sports. Thankfully none of the current interests are too serious. She had a taste of that and had her first heartbreak. So now I think she is happy to have lots of new friends who are boys. Several are pretty interested in her, one or two are very interested in her. But she is just enjoying the whole crazy, spinning whirlwind of teenage crushes. She likes to “enjoy the scenery.” Some boys are best enjoyed from a distance -- especially when she discovered that good looks and smarts don’t always come in the same package. One plus is that none of the new boy friends have cowboy hats and boots, plus all seem to be too young to drive. This is fantastic. But some have bikes and know where we live. It’s a give and take I guess. I remember having a lot of boyfriends in high school. In fact, I believe my dad stopped calling them by name and began numbering them. No lie. I think number 42 turned out to be a keeper.
My baby also loves to write. This makes me so proud. Most nights and weekends I can find her up in her room with her homework done, busily typing away on her laptop. She just thought she might add another chapter to a new story she is writing. This is her idea of a fun way to spend a Saturday night, researching story locations, new character names, and dog breeds online.
So that’s the whole reason we bought her the laptop. She used to write stories long hand, some a couple hundred pages long, and I was so afraid they would get lost or damaged. I want to be able to save all the stories she writes. Some day she will write books. I know this deep in my heart. While I enjoy writing non-fiction and smart-aleck prose, she is a fiction writer. One of her teacher’s once told me that she has a gift for writing dialogue. I can’t even say how proud this all makes me. Perhaps we can be the next Higgins-Clarks.
But there are days I wonder who this person is. I never considered Mandy a drama queen, but her emotional hormones have kicked into high gear. There are a few days every month that there is no reasoning with her. Life is miserable. The world is ending. How can you face the day when you can’t do anything with your hair?
It’s difficult to remember that we can be very different people, especially when we share the same keen knack for embarrassing ourselves. She has her own life, her own decisions to make, her own mistakes to learn from. I have the hardest time not stepping in when I see her making a bad decision. I have to leave the room when I don’t agree with how she is handling a situation. I always thought she was like her dad when she got mad: it’s a big whoosh of anger and then it’s over as fast as it began. Everything is all smiles and fine. But maybe she’s more like me: silent with a long memory. Heaven help her future spouse.
I will always give her my opinion. Heaven knows I can’t completely shut my mouth. But I guess she has to learn. She will have to live with the choices she makes. This is one of the hardest parts of the job for me – one hundred times harder than 2am feedings and toddler timeouts. I have to learn how to walk away.
If I had her abilities, I would find a high school that allowed me to use those abilities, maybe a smaller parochial high school. And there are several parochial high schools in the area. But she could care less if she plays high school volleyball or soccer. Sure, she says, she will try out for the team. But if she doesn’t make it, oh well. (Yes, really, all this time and effort growing up playing sports season after season and she says oh well.) She says she can play for her club volleyball team until she is done with high school. And with soccer, there is always the city rec league. Plus, mom, she can just run with dad a couple miles a few days a week to keep in shape. (I may need a blood test to check our DNA after hearing that statement.)
She wants to go to high school where her friends go. Right now she is looking at Southwest (MaRiah and Mikayla are going there), Southeast (Anne is going there), and East (Megan goes there). Southwest is just a few blocks from Rick’s office and has block scheduling, which most of the kids really seem to like. A lot of her sports friends are going to Southeast, so she would have a ton of friends there. And East, well Megan is there and those two girls are a party waiting to happen. But this can all change, just wait 10 minutes.
She has a lot of decisions to make this year regarding where her future will take her. And this is just the start. I pray for guidance, I pray for patience, and I especially pray for my sanity.
How am I going to survive the teen years? How am I going to keep my mouth shut? OK, so maybe I know where she gets the high drama thing from too. And we haven’t even started driving yet. Talk about driving me crazy….
Spinnin' Around by Jump5 (lovin all the braces)
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