Hitting the Wall

The kids and I have been living life at break-neck speed these last few weeks, or maybe it's months...it's all been a blur, to be honest. I should have known that speed was dangerous and we were bound to hit the wall eventually. We sure did tonight, in a big way. Or at least Katie hit the wall. See, she was gone all week on a class trip, immediately leaped into dance class, went back to school, partied all night, and got up early for a soccer tournament this morning.

As her mom, I have every sympathy for the pace of her week. But also as her mom, I need to know she is prepared for the week ahead, so that meant laying out expectations and meaning it when I said what the consequences would be for not meeting those expectations. Well, she napped instead of doing chores or school work, and I completely understand that. So, why do I feel so mean for telling her that she needs to spend tomorrow doing all the things she didn't complete today? I feel, absolutely, like an ogre, because she'll miss girl scouts, and EYC, and all the things she's been looking forward to doing. Or at least I felt bad until she slammed her bedroom door in my face....

That's when I hit my own personal wall. Out came the hammer, out came the screw driver, and I started to remove her bedroom door. Seriously, I was taking the door off the hinges. I've done it before, but I had to stop this time and step back and get a grip on reality.

We're all tired. None of us feel that great. I've worked through solid since last spring break, and I badly need a week off. It's the three of us day in and day out, as their dad is rarely around. We're getting on each other's nerves at this point.

Thanksgiving is coming and I think we have a whole new something to be thankful for this year - a chance to catch our breath collectively. We're all racing like mad little hamsters upon our wheels and at some point, somewhere, this has got to stop.

So, my job as a mom is to prepare my kids for the life ahead of them, once I'm no longer there to wield the heavy hammer. Which kind of prepared is the better prepared? I mean, I think that they live ridiculously busy lives, and they shouldn't be doing all the things they are doing. They're kids, and they should be kids. Heck, I don't think I should be doing all the stuff that I am doing. But this is the culture in which we live, unless I'm willing to throw it all away and go live on a tropical island somewhere and raise goats and eat coconuts (and I don't like coconuts all that much, and goats stink), then I've got to have them ready to live the lives ahead of them. That means finding a balance between not doing too much, and learning how to handle living in what amounts to carefully balanced chaos on some days.

Let's get a grip here - my kids are 10 and 12 years old. They're not supposed to know how to handle this much pressure, are they? I read an article a few days ago that said that the median age for girls to give up dolls when I was growing up was 11. Now, it is 6. Six year olds are too old to play with dolls? They're marketing dolls for "older" girls now, the Moxie Teen dolls and the like, in the hopes of keeping girls interested until they are 8. Wow. Katie is 12. She does not have one single toy in her room (I won't count all the stuffed penguins, those are different - they're companions, collections and obsessions, not really toys). She hasn't had a toy in her bedroom since she was younger than Erin Elizabeth is now. My younger daughter doesn't give a darn what anyone thinks - she still has tons of toys and plays with them without shame. Katie sometimes sneaks in there and plays too - she needs a break from worrying about taking the SAT, what heels to wear to a party, and how she can earn money for a trip to Costa Rica. She needs a break.

We all need a break. We need to play more, and worry less. We need to not schedule things, to not plan things, and not care about world issues for just one week. Not only do my children need to be children - even if it's only for a few days - I'd like to be a kid myself. I want to play with my kids this week, and not fuss at them. I want to listen to what they have to say, not worry about how I'm going to manage to get them to the ten million appointments and classes we've scheduled.

I'm teaching my kids to cope with the world in which we live, but I think Erin Elizabeth might be the smartest one of all, as she is more concerned about changing things that don't fit her vision of what the world ought to be. She's the one who will, maybe, make it a better world for all of us. Well, that is if I don't do my "job" too well, and spend too much time teaching her to cope and meet deadlines.

A friend told me this week that I need to learn to relax. She's right. I need to learn to let go, and give up some control. But again, there's a balance, because I can't lose my job or let my kids fail out of school while we learn to let our hair down.

In the meantime, in the words of millions of women who have gone before me - "Calgon, take me away." I sent Katie to bed - tomorrow won't be what she wanted it to be, but she can at least get some rest tonight before she tackles her tasks again. Me, I'm climbing into a hot bath, with a glass of wine, and the dishes can just stay dirty for tonight.

I've hit the wall in a big way, but there's no reason to let it hit me back.

Here Be Chickens

I've never really been one for signs in my life. I mean, I don't believe in predestination, because I think we all make our own choices in life. But the chickens this week have been hard to overlook...I mean, chickens. I don't eat them, so they can't be out for revenge. And, yet, everywhere I look, it's been chickens these last few days.

I was thinking about it while I had one of those "I Love Lucy" moments in which I often find myself. See, I can dance with grace and elegance, but truly, I have no grace in daily life. I am as clumsy as clumsy can be. I can trip over a line drawn on the carpet. One of my good friends calls me "Grace," because I don't have any. And I get myself into situations - the keystone cop kind of situations. And yes, I can laugh about it, usually while I'm in the midst of one of these nearly impossible predicaments, making it even harder to recover some dignity. The latest loss of dignity involved pipe cleaners and a giant bean bag. I blame Carlo....it's his bean bag, and it attacked me. See, when I say giant bean bag, I mean big enough for fifteen middle school kids to sit on at one time - I know, we used it for photos at the last school dance. Somehow, "take it back to the Youth House for Carlo," sounded just like, "put it in my storage shed." So, when I run into the storage shed to get a package of pipe cleaners, I find that the targeted storage box is - of course - at the back of the shed, and on the bottom shelf. But the giant bean bag loomed between me and my goal. Undaunted, I shoved it up and to the side, and retrieved my pipe cleaners. In typical graceful fashion, I turned, lost my balance, fell, and landed on my back with the giant bean bag on top of me.

I laid there, listening to the sound of children playing on the playground behind me, and hoping that no one would come along and shut the door - imagine my kids' dismay when I didn't pick them up...no one would ever know what happened to me, unless they came looking for more art supplies. I was pushing ineffectively at the gelatinous blob, but kept giggling and just had to stop and rest for a moment. It was then the chickens came back to me. They'd been in the road that morning, a whole gaggle of them. Well, a flock, I guess, because geese run in gaggles. But I like the word gaggle better than flock, so I'm going to call them a gaggle of chickens....I don't live in the country, and I don't live near a poultry farm. Why there were chickens on Bingle Road during morning traffic, I'll never know. But there were chickens in the road.

This brought back to mind the portion of a bizarre dream from the night before when the pastor and associate pastor from my church were wrestling with a chicken in the sanctuary. Was that a premonition of chickens to come? Who knows, I was reminiscing and probably losing oxygen from being folded up under the enormous bean bag....

I finally managed to get my legs up and under and heaved myself out from under the bean bag of death. I probably looked a little strange, with my hair frizzed out in every direction, stomping back to my office, and breathing a little funny. Still, I had visions of chickens dancing in my brain.

So, I ran into a friend, who launched into a story about how her three year old was randomly screaming, "fight, chickens, fight" and I started to think there was more than mere coincidence at work here in the universe.

I mean, there has to be a reason why common threads come to gether and knit ugly wool scarves like the chicken stories. Ooh, OK, really failed metaphor. But I wonder if I'm wrong about fate? Maybe we have to rise up to meet it with grace. If that's so, I"m in trouble, because I REALLY don't have any grace of my own....but seriously, do I really get to make my own choices, or are all these seemingly random bits and pieces of my life really not so random at all. I might choose my friends, but I can't pick my chickens? I'd never try to count them before they hatched, because, well, that would just be weird.

No, no I'm pretty sure I can't get a concussion from something as soft as a bean bag.... but my thoughts have been racing today, and I wonder again how much of who I am is about the choices I have made - which is what I have always believed - and how much is who I was made to be. There once were two roads, and I chose the one less traveled, but there were chickens in the middle of it anyway....oh, dear....no matter which road I choose, am I destined to come back to the chickens? How much of our lives has to do with free will, which I have always belived was God's gift AND curse to us - the gift of choice? How much of my life has already been written and I just have to go along for the ride? If chickens are inevitable, then will it matter that I choose something else?

The answer, still, is that I refuse to believe that we are predestined to chickens or any other absurd realities. I've thought about it a lot today, and I certainly have had the time, you know, lying about under bean bags and such. I went and reassuringly opened my freezer. I have chick 'n - no chickens here. I choose to keep them alive and healthy somewhere else. Here there be eggs, but no chickens. We have cats, and frogs, and mice, and hamsters and hedgehogs - but no chickens. I still choose my own path, and if that path contains chicken, I'll bolster up my patience, and just walk on by. Or, maybe I'll lock them up with the giant bean bag and let them fight it out.

I have my own demons to fight on a daily basis - the chickens are on their own.

Mating Rituals of the Serengeti and Other Observations

I was watching a nature show earlier this week, while drifting in and out of awareness, letting my extra strong cold medicine take me off into a drug induced nothingness. The truth is, I am addicted to useless facts. I mean, they're not useless for everyone, but pretty much useless to my daily life. In order to feed my useless fact craving, I often turn on Discovery Channel, History Channel, Biography Channel, etc. and listen while I'm doing other things. But I'm finding that while with a fever and taking multiple cold medications is not the time to listen for useless facts. It creates weird dreams, for one.

So, out on the savannah, the lion is king. No surprise there. Lions travel in prides - so called, I'll assume, after the prevailing characteristic of the male. Each pride is comprised of one or two males - they would be the Alpha and the Beta - and a whole lot of females. The male with the biggest muscles, coolest mane and loudest roar is the Alpha. All those Omegas roam on the periphery of the prides, and either live as bachelors, or they form their own lesser prides. They don't have access to a good trainer or a stylist, so they just have to make do with what they have.

So, I'm listening to all of this as I drift in and out of reality, but in my mind I'm picturing my daughter and her friends. This has been a year for social adjustments and a learning curve for my middle school girl. Listening to the mating habits of the lions could be describing the social circles I observe on a daily basis in my girl's school. It's still all about the hair and how loud they can roar. I picked Katie up from a dance party on Halloween, and I was sort of superimposing the lions' terms right over the mental images I had of those adolescents.

I mean, my kid is most definitely an Omega kind of lion. She's aware of it, and she doesn't strive to be anything else. Her friends are Omegas, and they've formed their own pride. It's all good, and I think some of them have pretty good hair - they've got reason to have some pride in their, um, pride. But I think every once in a while, she wonders what it would be like to be part of an Alpha group. She doesn't care enough to pursue the subjucation required of the lioness to join one of those prides, so she just stays with the Omegas. As she says, "we're weird, but you know, we're all the same kind of weird - it's good."

So, by this point, I had weird images in my brain of lions standing upright, wearing Halloween costumes, and dancing, or just trying to be cool Alphas...whatever the situation called for. I watched the Alpha male surrounded by his lionesses - they had staked out a distinct center advantage spot on the dance floor. Beta groups surrounded the big Alpha group. The Omegas had claimed the two corners. And there were "bachelor" males roaming the perimeter. I could almost smell the zebras downwind at this point.

We're so not different from the animals. We all have our own proving grounds, our own social strata, our own pecking order. Adult humans have the advantage that the animals don't have, that we can choose to abandon the social matrix and create our own - although some cling to this animalistic order into their 40's, but hey, it's a choice. It's a right of passage as adolescents, though, to learn to navigate the ins and outs of the grasslands. As long as my kid isn't taking down any hapless wildebeasts, it's all OK with me.

My friend Carlo has a theory that children are born not so different from animals. We "train" them to recognize dangers, to know right from wrong. We use conditioning, rituals, and occasional swats on the behind until they can make decisions on their own. It's a parent's job to help children overcome instinct and use reason instead. Hmmm...I thought he was crazy when he first brought this up. More and more, I'm seeing the transformation, and seeing that he might have had a point. I'm still not planning on putting out a giant kitty litter box for the girls, I mean they're human - no, really. Despite the sometimes unpleasant smells coming from Katie's gym bag, I'm pretty sure they're 100% homo sapien. They walk upright and everything. Then again, I don't have any boys of my own - maybe I would see more evidence of animal nature in that case. Carlo does, after all, have a boy of his own. A good kid, a sweet kid, but the need to spit, tell crude jokes, and spread his scent all crop up from time to time. It's part of the nature of the beast.

So, I wonder what kind of rituals are still ahead of us. I've seen posturing, circling, swoop and strike conversations, and outright ambushes (but those are usually the girls). Maybe I'll just get her some jungle red nail polish and let her battle it out in a primal away. In the mean time, I think I'll see if I've got any more of those good drugs - maybe it'll help me get through the next five or six years of primal social time.

If the Shoe Fits

Last weekend, I helped Katie clean out the shoe bins in her closet. Her feet grow so rapidly these days that some pairs don't fit from week to week. We bagged up tennis shoes, soccer cleats, flip-flops, party shoes and cowboy boots, to be given away. Out with the old, and in with the new, I suppose. I wish there weren't quite so many new, though. For example, she owns four pairs of dance shoes - jazz, tap, character, and ballroom. I would have thought we had covered the bases. She came home from dance practice Thursday and said she needed ballet slippers, because her feet aren't gliding during the warm-up.

Size ten ballet slippers. It's almost comical - like she's standing on pink leather skis. I took them out of the bag tonight and looked at her pink slippers, then got out her first pair of ballet shoes. I've saved them, along with her baby shoes. I could fit three of that first pair, end to end, inside the ones she bought today. I remember her first day in Ms. Susan's ballet studio, how she learned to tuck her shoes up inside her leotard when she put on her street shoes - just like a real ballerina, Ms. Susan assured the girls. She danced to "Spoonful of Sugar," that first year, in hot pink and silver costume. It was comedy gold. Now she doesn't care about how she dresses - her dance clothes smell worse that then boys' locker room during football season - but she loves the movement and the musicality involved. My daughter, who is growing so quickly that she's often gawky and awkward, is so graceful and different when she dances. I'd be tempted to save these shoes when she's done with them (hopefully she'll wear them out, rather than outgrow them), but as I said - they smell after a while.

I held those little girl slippers in my hands tonight, and started thinking about how many milestones in my kids' lives could be measured by the shoes I bought. It seems there have been so many occasions and activities that required their own footwear. Katie got her first shoes when we traveled to visit family in the northeast, because it was cold there and shoes helped keep her little feet warm. The next summer she got her first pair of "jelly"sandals - she called them her tap shoes and clomped up and down the halls, listening to the sound of them on the hardwood floors. That second Halloween, she was Dorothy and wore her ruby slippers until they fell apart. Elizabeth got new Bob the Builder shoes to wear on her first day of school. She got her first flip-flops, which resulted in her first busted lip. Kindergarten brought their first soccer cleats. Dress shoes for choir. White shoes for Easter Sunday. Riding boots to take to camp. Cowboy boots for rodeo.

I could line them all up, and they'd circle our block. A parade of where my kids have been, and pointing - toe to toe - to where they are going. These days, Katie still wears mostly shoes that let her do what she likes best - dancing, volleyball, soccer or plain old Sperrys for school. But high heels are starting to creep into the wardrobe. She borrowed mine for a while, but now my shoes are too short for her. I'm not sure if I'm relieved or sad about that. I've certainly proven that a mom can get nostalgic and irrationally weepy over anything, even a smelly pair of soccer cleats.

My own shoes are less exciting. Oh, I had my first high heels days, and those have gone by. Sometimes I think about my grandmother and her shoes - she had about a hundred pairs. At 4'10", she felt it was necessary to wear heels at all times. At 88, she was forced to wear practical shoes, and she said it was the worst thing about growing old she'd found yet. Her feet were gnarled, with bunions and corns. But, oh, how she loved her shoes. In my punk phase, she threw out my black boots more than once, telling me to get something "cute and girlie, so the boys won't be confused." I didn't have the heart to tell her, it wasn't my shoes that the boys were checking out.

These days my shoes are like me - mostly practical, with a really fun pair thrown in here and there. But if I had my way, I'd just go barefoot all the time. Barefoot would be wonderful - no more sore toes, no blisters on my heels, always able to feel the world beneath my toes. But then, if we all went barefoot, I'd have no memory trail of shoes. Now, if Katie's feet would just quit growing....

so how did that happen?

I was driving home this evening, car loaded with grumpy, hungry kids, and I did it again...I just sort of blocked things out for a few minutes, came back to awareness, and had a momentary panic. For about four seconds, I absolutely had no idea where I was or how I got there. Where I was, was driving down a road I drive several times a week. But for just those few seconds, I, well, I wasn't in Kansas anymore. Well, I've never been in Kansas for more than a pass-through, but you get the point. It got my heart pumping for a moment, wondering if I'd turned on a strange road and not noticed somehow. But if I had turned onto an unfamiliar road, ironically, I would have noticed right away. It just goes to show how easy it is to miss the ordinary, the every day, and how scary it is when we realize those things aren't right there in front of us any more.

No, I haven't been drinking, and there is no need to call to have my license suspended. We got home safely and with a minimum of whining (and no wine at all, because I was, afterall, driving). But it all resonated so clearly, because it's exactly what I do on a regular basis. I wake up, I get dressed on autopilot, and I don't do anything wacky like put my bra on the outside of my clothing (not yet...senior moments are rare still), but I don't think about what I'm doing, or where I'm headed. It's all routine. And every great once in a while, I look up and wonder where I am, and how the heck I got here. How did I get to be thirty something? How did I become a mother, and oh, wow...shouldn't someone have made me take a test on that or something? How did I get to where I am in my life?

I remember the major milestones. I remember learning to ride a bike. I remember starting high school. I remember my first car. Going to college. Getting married. I remember the days my kids were born. Those are clear. It's all the stuff in between that's a blur. I look up and wonder, "so how did that happen?" It's amazing to me that the things that most clearly define who I am and where I am at this particular juncture in time are the small things. It's making a bad choice in a minor way, but learning something major from it. It's parenting day after day and not losing my temper (and I need a sign like hazardous work sites with a ____ days since the last explosion warning). It's the jokes with my friends. The hugs from my kids that I take too much for granted. The glasses of wine. The monotony of cleaning my house, and a million other little things that have led me down this road. All the twists and turns are minor, and so familiar to me. I'd notice if something big happened. Say, I won the lottery tomorrow...I'd notice. It would not slip by me. It wouldn't slip by anyone in the near vacinity, because it's hard to ignore a woman screaming and dancing naked in the streets. But...my shoe has a hole in it, and I promise you it won't bother me at all until I step in a puddle...just won't notice until there's something worth noticing.

So, if I'm driving in a daze, thinking about what I need to get done or how mad I am at a coworker, or if I should go for a long walk or skip it but also skip dinner, and I suddenly look up to be derailed by a familiar street missing a sign and am thrown into a panic of "how did I get here," it's perfectly normal and to be expected, right? (And wow...that was a major disaster of a run-on sentence.) It's admirable of me to say I'm going to appreciate the little stuff and take time to really look instead of just seeing...but it's not realistic. We're hardwired to overlook the little stuff, the familiar stuff...there's a reason we call it the big stuff. It's big. It's worth noticing. It's what reminds us of where we've been along the way. All the little road markers are no more than a green blur on the side of the road, as we whiz past, racing toward the next small thing. So, tomorrow when I say, "how the heck did this happen?" Tell me to blame it on the little stuff.

gender bending

I've been thinking a lot about gender roles this week. In all the years I taught early childhood, the argument of nature vs. nurture came up...a lot. I never had a clear cut answer for anyone. I'm certain, no matter whether it is politically correct or not, that little boys are hardwired for different kinds of play than little girls. Give a four year old girl and a four year old boy the same Barbie doll, and they'll both play with it. But the girl's Barbie will be groomed, go to a wedding, and play with friends. The boy's barbie will be tied up with string at some point, be dragged through mud, and possibly interrogated. In particularly sophisticated play, the Barbie might actually become a gun - little perfect plastic legs pointed and "pow, pow" sounds resonating through the air. But.....little boys love pink just as much as little girls, and I'm certain that it's only society that makes blue preferable. After all, purple was once the color of kings - women would never have been allowed to wear such a rich color. We teach them a lot - girls dance ballet, boys play football. We teach them that boys are good at math, and girls talk too much, so they're better in English class.

Some of us grew up with the idea that there are men's jobs and women's jobs. So, it all came back to me in a rush tonight, while I was doing the dishes. How fitting. I worked today - all day- came home, cooked dinner, did laundry and then cleaned up the dishes. John is on vacation this week....he took the kids to Academy, and then he watched television while I cooked, cleaned and fussed at the kids. When he's not around - sometimes for weeks at a time - I take care of whatever needs to be done. But it never occurs to him to do all the things I do...the man could walk past a pile of dirty clothes for months, and it would never occur to him to wash the smelly socks. He'd just go buy new ones. I know...he's done it before. I've spent years conducting experiments to see how long I can leave things to fester before he'll turn a gimlet eye in their direction. Now...he does vacuum. Vacuums make noise, they have moving parts...they are manly.

Is it a learned gender role, or are grown up boys still playing different roles than grown up girls? I wonder....

When Katie slammed her bedroom door one time too many (which would be only once, for those who know me), I threatened to take her door off the hinges. Her answer to me, "you can't, my Daddy won't let you use his tools." Wait, wait, wait...I have my own tools. They're not even pink.

For those who know me, my only brother is gay. He is a gay, brilliant musician...he does not use tools, work on cars, or care about my dad's war career. I was the only person left for my dad to teach. I can paint a house, shoot a gun, replace a car battery, and am quite good at maintaining the lawn. But even my dad maintains that just because I CAN do those things, doesn't mean that I should. Women should be kept safe. Well...I'm all for safe, but I'll gladly trade some grass mowing for someone else putting away the freaking laundry.

I've never told my girls that there are any kinds of limitations on what they can do as females (except peeing standing up...there ARE some lines you just don't cross). Yet, as puberty rounds the corner for Katie, I see she's embracing what it means to be a girl in our world.

So, the water was growing cold on my dishpan hands while I was thinking about all of this tonight, and I refuse to believe that I am destined to smell like clorox forever, just because I have a Y chromosome. I'm pretty sure the lack of that same chromosome didn't deprive the males around me of the ability to put laundry in a machine. It's a machine, guys, it makes noise and it even walks across the floor with a really manly swagger, if you put in enough heavy stuff. Maybe if I paint it camouflage colors and call it Rambo...in the meantime, I think I'm sad that I never had a little boy so I could observe some of these things from beginning to adulthood, and draw some conclusions. Then again, one person leaving the toilet seat up at my house is probably enough.

mirror, mirror

Tonight I watched Katie posing in front of the mirror in our hallway. She spends a lot of time doing that lately. So much, we put a full length mirror in her bedroom. The hope was that this would prevent half-naked prancing in the hallway. Yeah...she likes the hallway one better. She came out with hair up, blue pajama top. She skipped out with pigtails and red pajama pants. Back to the green and white pajamas. Then she took a shower...and started all over again.

I found myself wondering, "what does she see when she stares into that mirror?" I know what I see when I look at my daughter. I see a beautiful girl, who can look pretty ugly when she's angry. I see a talented kid, who all too often coasts by with the bare minimum effort. I see the enthusiasm of childhood, tempered by the onset of teen angst - being too enthusiastic would be uncool. I see the shadow of the toddler who never left my side, and frightening glimpses of the woman she will become. I see the battle between wanting to be accepted and being true to herself. I see the pig-tails and mascara, the stuffed animals and texts to boys, the elation and frustration, cartwheels and high heels - all in equal, scary measures. When I look into her face, I see the baby I carried and the soul I have known since before she was born.

What does she see?

I was in a workshop last week when I was asked to say three words that would be said by co-workers at my retirement party. Now, first of all, I hate these types of questions...."if you were a root vegetable, what kind of root veg would you be?" ummm...turnip? Oh, is that bad? Anyway, I was so stumped by that question, it was embarrassing. I stammered, stuttered, and couldn't think of a thing. When pressed to say how I thought co-workers see me, I answered "insomniac, overly-demanding, quiet." The people at my table were shocked, as they said none of those were words that would have come to their minds - well, maybe the insomniac part...that's legendary. One person even went so far as to say she's concerned if that's really how I see myself. Other people described themselves with such hope, such optimism...

I look in the mirror every day. If I'm not seeing myself, then who do I see? I think a lot of the person in the mirror is the girl I was TOLD I was the whole time I grew up. It was summed up in two words, "not perfect." If it's not an A+, then it's not perfect. If there's one thing out of place in your home, then it's not perfect. If your hair is messed, then it's not perfect. I look at the things I have done, and see only the mistakes...keep looking for perfect.

When I look at my children, I don't see what they have done wrong (well, yes, I do, but I don't see that as who they are). I don't measure them by how many mistakes they make, or how many others have done better. I expect my kids to be true to themselves, and they're for sure not perfect. I don't want perfect - I prefer lovable and learning. Perfect kids wouldn't go with my imperfect furniture anyway.

When Katie is prancing in the hallway, I have two hopes for her. I hope that - and I really do mean this - she is wearing something more than a bra. But even more, I hope that she sees what the rest of us see smiling back at her - all her imperfect glory. All the possibility. All the dreams. All the lovable mess that is her.