She is Loved

Time with my daughter, Lauren is precious. She will roll her 14 year old eyes when she reads this and insist that I am being “weird”. I don’t care about the eye roll. It is guaranteed to happen and I would worry if it did not. 

This weekend, we are at Trivia Weekend in Stevens Point-kind of a big deal if you are into that sort of that thing and Lauren came along armed with her swimsuit for hot tub time, several changes of outfits, her blanket, her IPAD, her homework and all of her hair and makeup products.

Right before we were supposed to hit the road, Lauren seemed to hear for the first time, that we were staying in Stevens Point until Sunday. Clearly she wasn’t happy. She claims to have not heard me state this fact earlier and I know that I have, but choose not to argue about it. It is wise to pick my battles. I mentally note that it would have been an even bigger bag of outfits had she known about the extra day. I quietly listened to her sigh and grown about being away for so long. Secretly, I was happy because that means that I have a whole weekend with my daughter.

There are a lot of people that come up to Joe and Lisa’s for trivia. I don’t know most of them, but I know her. I know that she will sit next to me with her cute outfit on and her perfectly brushed hair and smelling like a flower and she will be the one that I enjoy the most. I watch her play with her IPAD. I watch her take pictures. I watch her do homework and I am proud. She is sitting next to me and I can study her-the way she holds her pencil, so different then the way that I hold my own. I watch her take pride in writing her notes for her homework. I know that I was the same. I know that I too loved the way, when I was doing homework, how the pencil felt brushing across the fresh clean paper. I too loved how pretty the words were on my paper with the special loops and circles and care that only a 14 year old can give to homework.

I watch Lauren carefully. I know that I won’t get any of this time back. I want to wrap it all up in a carefully wrapped gift and set it under a Christmas tree that I keep out all year long and when I am feeling sad, or overwhelmed, I can open one of the little packages up and know that it will bring me an immediate smile. She does that, without knowing the power of her words, her smile, her giggle, her words and all I know is that I want her to only be surrounded with people who will protect and cherish all those things about her. I know this isn’t possible, but as a mother, I can’t help but pray that this is truly what happens.

There are people that fill this house this weekend that won’t know that she loves to dance and she is fantastic at it. How one moves their body like that I will never understand and it is effortless. These strangers (friends for the weekend) won’t know about how she likes to write, that she likes to organize, that she loves to surround herself with pretty things but still loves getting down right dirty. They won’t know that she loves to take care of people, especially me. She gives from the very depths of her heart, without being told to. She is love.

I know that she would rather be with her friends. I know that she would rather not be driving two hours to hang out with strangers, searching the internet for random stuff that matters to know one but everyone playing trivia this weekend. I am so happy that she is here. She is loved.