If I imagine that I have my hands wrapped around my oldest daughter, I can feel that my fingers are being pryed open one at a time. I am slowly loosening my grip...one finger at a time. My pinky is barely open.
Uggh....this growing up stuff is for the birds! I am watching my little girl grow into a young woman. But you know what? It's not all that bad. We are actually having fun with it. And to be totally honest, I am enjoying it. She is having the time of her life, that's for sure!
Yesterday, we hit a big milestone. I let her walk to Dari-Licious by herself (with a friend). She has been begging me all summer and I know a lot of her friends ride their bikes and walk all over town, but I'm just not comfortable with it. I watch too much news! Another thing is, where we live...there are no sidewalks. So, she would either have to walk on a busy road to get to one, cross over a busy road to a parking lot or cut through someone's yard. No good choices for us. I chose the latter for them and they made it there and back safely. No one kidnapped them and no one even attempted to kidnap them. Shew! They both did have cell phones and I did text her a couple of times to check on them. They were fine. I'm sure I was riding and walking all over town when I was that age but I lived in town and...it was safer back then:P
So I said I checked on her a couple of times via text. This brings me to my next point. I think I'm hovering too much. I don't want to be an overbearing mom. The other day, I was checking her facebook page (because every mom should check their kid's page daily) and I saw that there was a group called, "I hate it when my mom asks me who I'm texting!". A lot of Cali's friends had joined it. She hadn't and she wouldn't (at least she'd better not) but I always ask that. Now I know I have a right to and Cali doesn't even have her own cell phone yet so I really have a right to but I can also see a tween/teen could become a little rebellious if a parent is constantly nagging or questioning. So I thought a better way to approach that would be, either I can look later to see who she was texting or ask in a different manner...not always, "who are you texting?" That would get old. Imagine yourself as a tween again!
As far as her facebook goes, she knows that if she is allowed to have one that she has to follow our rules. We have never really had any problems with it. Occasionally she writes something she has to take off but for the most part, she is good. She's not allowed to do any of the quizzes and she can only chat if I say she can and with her close friends. I don't love the chat feature because I can't see what she has written. In other words, there is no accountablity. I just trust that she is being a good girl and not gossiping or anything like that on there. I like facebook because you can see what her friends are up to and it has been good for her to get to know kids from other grades and other schools. If used with supervision, it can be a good thing! I check her facebook at least twice a day but I'm trying to do it so she's not aware just to eliminate that "hovering mother" title.
She has had a great summer. She has a great group of friends, both boys and girls and she has hung out with them a lot. She has had no issues and I have not once heard her complain about being bored or not having any friends to hang out with. There is always someone who is willing to come over and hang by the pool and if not, she's good with a day with the family (just not too many of those for Cali;)
We have started a new bedtime routine. She will ask me to lie down with her. We will pray and then she'll say, "let's talk". When I ask her what she wants to talk about, sometime she will discuss a conversation between her and a friend. Sometimes she will ask questions about Tuttle and sometimes she gets giggly and wants to talk about boys. It makes no difference to me. I'm just thrilled that she wants to talk to me and I want it to go on...forever! I love our pillow talks.
I know she isn't always going to love the decisions that we make for her. I know we aren't always going to be best friends through the tween/teen years but I am certainly going to try to keep the peace.
She informed me yesterday as she was trying to convince me that she was old enough and responsible enough to walk to Dari-Licious that she was in her 12th year of life. I have 10 fingers gripped around her with one pinky barely up. Not sure how that works out mathematically but in a few short years, I will have to lift all the fingers and let her go!
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