~ My Girls ~

I’ve been thinking alot lately about raising girls and the world I am raising them in.  

Okay... so really...

I’ve been freaking out lately about raising girls, and the world I am raising them in.

(Luci's Closet)

Recently, my cousin's son had a bullying incident at school.  It was bad...2 kids held his hand in the hinges of the door while another kids slammed it shut. It broke bones and required surgery on his hand.  When my mom told me this on the phone, I was so fired up I could have spit nails.  And it wasn’t even my kid.  Thank God it wasn’t, I think my exact words were:
"First, I’d go to the school and slap the kid in the face, then I’d go to the kid's house and slap his parents in the face, twice."  


My husband is well aware that I am allowed to get arrested at least once in my life, and it could very well be for beating up a 3rd grader who was mean to my kid. 

Let’s be honest: I’m raising a very girly girl.   My Luci.  She came out of the womb this way.  


Sure, I painted her toes when she was a baby and dressed her in pink, but have you met her?  It’s all her, 200% her.   


She is sweet and she is dainty.  She wears her little heart sewn permanently on her sleeve.  Never sees the bad side to anything.  Makes up new songs everyday.  Gives compliments daily.  She sings in the car, loud and free, usually to Beyonce.   Always unleashed in her thoughts, actions and giggles.  I want her life to stay like this forever,  I want to grant her a life full of nothing but rainbows and unicorns.  But I'm not in control of that.  I worry about her so much and that one day her sweety, spunky, personality will be tainted by the meanness in the world when some little 13 year old witch makes fun of her clothes or her hair. 


She is reaching an age where I am no longer just playing Barbies with her.  She is asking questions, and I am teaching her about the world.  


 I could never quite explain it the way I wanted to, and then I found these words.  Written by another blogger,  they touched me so deep that I wanted to write them down here, and make sure I never she forgets them.  

I want to print this out and put it in her baby book.  I want to frame them and hang it on her wall.  I want to read this to her as a bedtime story every night.  Luci Manno, this is for you:

There was a time when you were five years old,

and you woke up full of awesome.

You knew you were awesome.

You loved yourself.

You thought you were beautiful,

even with missing teeth and messy hair and mismatched socks inside your grubby sneakers.

You loved your body, and the things it could do.

You thought you were strong.

You knew you were smart.

Do you still have it?

The awesome.

Did someone take it from you?

Did you let them?

Did you hand it over, because someone told you weren’t beautiful enough, 
thin enough, smart enough, good enough?

Why the hell would you listen to them?

Did you consider they might be full of shit?

Wouldn’t that be nuts, to tell my little girl below that in another five or ten years she might hate herself because she doesn’t look like a starving and Photoshopped fashion model?

Or even more bizarre, that she should be sexy over smart, beautiful over bold?

Are you freaking kidding me?

Look at her. She is full of awesome.

You were, once. Maybe you still are. Maybe you are in the process of getting it back.

All I know is that if you aren’t waking up feeling like this about yourself, you are really missing out.

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I have another daughter, Libby Lu, who I have yet to label a “tomboy,” but she isn't much of a "princess" either.  She equally loves her brother and sisters toys.  She will whack the dog with her brother's light saber while wearing her sister's high heels.   

She is a little pistol, and judging by the way she layed the smackdown on a little boy who took her toy at the playground last week, eh...I'm not too worried about this one.   Sister bear can hold her own.   I'm sort of banking on her to stand up for her big sister once in a while.

More than anything in the world I want them to be smart,confident, and love the bejesus out of who they are.  It makes me sad that there was a time in my life that I thought it was cute to be dumb.   It was sometime in the later years of high school or early college.  I think all girls sort of go through this stage.  I’m not dumb, I’ve never been dumb and want to make sure my girls don’t every feel they need to be dumb to be cute. 

With this whole motherhood stuff I feel like a I got the basics under control.   I hug, I kiss, I snuggle.   I can swaddle a newborn baby into a perfect burrito bundle, I can feel a fever with my cheek,  I can predict when they're up to no good from 3 rooms away, but that's only part of the job.  The grander task is raising kids who feel loved, secure and confident in themselves and their abilities.  Who are kind and gentle to others.  Its raising winners who feel compassion for the losers, it's raising kids rich in love to one day lend a hand to those with empty hearts.  Any maybe... hopefully... I pray...it's raising a little princess who can also kick a little ass too.