The Puddles

I know that Madie is special.  She is brillant.  In Chris’s words, “She is scary smart.” And of course, with every fiber of her being, she declared to me yesterday that, “I get my smarts from Daddy” (when she’s right, she’s right.) She has so many gifts and talents.  One of her “gifts” (or curse) is that she wants to be so perfect at everything.  She becomes extremely agitated if she is not perfect at everything she tries to do.  (My mother would say that both the agitation and perfectionism unfortunately can be genetically linked to her mother.)  One of her gifts is not athleticism.  And soccer is not her forte . . . yet.  She is really trying though.  Tonight as we are walking to the car she pulls back from the rest of the pack of puddles and asks to speak to me. She wants to know why she is not very good at running especially in soccer. We talk about how every body has gifts on her soccer team and that she may not be the fastest runner but she has other gifts that she brings to the team.  And most importantly . . . you can’t be good at everything.  “Yea. I guess you are right,” says Madie, but not with much conviction.  I don’t think I won her over with that argument.  Soon we were at the car and the time for the rest of this conversation was over.

I wish I could convince her.  We have talked about this before. How she is really great at her school work and always makes straight A’s.  How she is a great big sister to both Ben and Ainsley.  How she has a wonderful understanding of her faith and loves to share with others. How she is a great helper to all adults.  How she is respectful of others. How when she wants something she works really hard until she accomplishes it.  How she is so dependable at home and at school.  How she has such a vivid imagination and is so creative.  She has such a beautiful soul.

So tonight after the littlest puddles had gone to bed, I wanted to talk to her some more.  I wanted to make sure that her self-esteem was intact. That she feels good about herself. We crawled into bed to read some stories.  And as she is crawling up beside me she says, “Mom.  I’ve been meaning to tell you something. When I am 12, you are going to need to drive me to Los Angeles because I am going to try out for this singing contest called . . . I just wanted you to know so that you won’t be surprised when I ask you to take me.”

I was stunned and thrilled at the same time.  I want my daughter at the age of 9 to have hopes and dreams like that. I want her to do everything that she ever wants to do.  I want her to be the first pastor/vet/librarian/singer/emt/teacher/mother that there ever was.  I worry so much about her future.  I worry about how her zeal for perfectionism will affect her self-esteem.  I also worry about other people in this world taking out chunks of her self-esteem one comment at a time.  I thought my job used to be to just protect her fragile soul from the world outside. But now I realize that my job is that and to make sure that I keep building her up so that when those chunks come out we can glue it back together.  So she is ready to face the world again tomorrow.

I think I have done good for today.  She is going to bed ready to deal with the world tomorrow.  The hard part is that I can only really deal with the here and now.  I can’t protect her forever.  I can’t “take out” every person who would do her harm. Having children is hard. Having girls is really hard. What I want to do is send them both to a cloistered convent in rural Canada.  Far from everything bad. But I can’t do that.  So we try every day to be good parents.  To not just teach her right from wrong, but to teach her just how special she is.  Only time will tell if we succeeded in this endeavor.  With prayer and hope . . . I think we will.