mom failure # 611

how does this happen.

i always figured i'd be one of those moms. the ones that join the pta and volunteer class mother and bake cupcakes and fund-raise and run from piano lessons to soccer lessons to underwater basket weaving.

i am so not.

its not that i'm entirely inept at this venture. but life just hasn't turned out quite like i'd imagined. and i'm not quite the creative, inventive, exciting mom i thought i'd be. i have my moments of pure genius. but they're few and far between. and most days, if i can manage the wind-up and wind-down routine, between the work, the cooking, the cleaning, the homework, the wife stuff, the mom stuff, the good cop/bad cop, i call it a good day and high five myself on the way to bed.

bella's grown leaps and bounds over the summer and aside from your occasional melt-down *hiccup*, i've just been amazed at how much she's grown and grown up.

enrolling her in Girls Inc. this summer was the perfect choice, and i feel so blessed for the opportunity. so when she came home yesterday with a sign up sheet for Girls On The Run , i got caught up in her excitement, yet not without a little trepidation.

as the mom of a daughter, and as a woman that still has issues of her own, i really struggle with how to approach certain things. she is beautiful and smart and funny and fearless and full of life. she's so creative and curious and talented. and i want to give her the stars and every opportunity that falls beneath them.

i want her to feel empowered and equal and strong. i don't want to pass on my self-criticism. my negative body image. my fear of failure. my sense of inadequacy.

my daughter will never be tall or lithe, due to genetics. she is short and solid, and she is so happy that her baby tummy is slowly fading away with each new growth spurt. her hair will always have wild natural wave when not tamed down and she will always have freckles across her nose in the summer. her nose and hands and feet will always look like her daddy's. the scotch and irish in her will ensure porcelain skin in the winter and spark that bold temper just under the surface; the cherokee will ensure an easy tan every summer. her eyes will always be bright sparkling blue. her giggle will always be infectious and her voice will always be the sweetest one i've ever heard.

and she is perfect.

she has never been particularly sporty. coordination and focus are her 2 nemesis'. and while i've encouraged these activities, i've never really led by example or pushed her in that area, instead choosing to take a more laid-back approach, encouraging her to try new things and make choices for herself. she loved karate in kindergarten. but money, or the lack of it, forced us to give it up after her first year. dance was a fun, but wrong choice at the time, as coordination wasn't neccesarily our forte' and the teacher wasn't neccesarily kind about it. the east tennessee childrens choir was lovely and educating, but stuffy and expensive and grown up for a a rambunctious 7 year old on the move, that loved to sing but didn't love to stand still.

so this program looks awesome. and its the very first sport related activity that she's taken a genuine interest in. i'd hoped for maybe soccer or t-ball over the years, and she was never excited about those things. so this, after all this time, was great news. its a 12 week program that the girls participate in, and throughout the process, the girls are coached not only on physical activity, but healthy living, right choices, life balance, etc... all fees are based on what your family can personally afford and at the end of the 12 weeks, the girls take part in a 5k run. anyone is welcome, noone is discriminated against. and it doesn't matter if you walk, run, skip or hop to the finish line, as long as you make the choice to finish.

and its only open to the first 15 girls that sign up, per district.

she was so excited last night. she made sure i signed all the right places. and this morning, she got right up and got ready without the tiniest fuss. we left the house by 7:35. plenty of time to make it. the doors don't open til 7:45.

and thats when everything went wrong. i don't know if it was the first day of fall semester at the college, or what. but we got stuck behind every slow car in every slow lane at every red light. i parked at exactly 7:47 and we sprinted inside. only to be told that they'd already met their quota but would be happy to put her on the waiting list, "just in case".

i put on my *brave mom smile* and squeezed her hand as she turned away and her little chin started to quiver. i took her aside and grabbed her up in a big hug and whispered, "remember our story last night? the one from Grandma's Attic, that talks about God's ways? if you're meant to be in this race this year, then God will make it happen. and if you're not, then He has something even better".

she gave me one of those brave, if-you-say-so, kid faces and ran off to assembly in the gym.

and i wanted to cry.

cuz i believe what i told her. i really do. but it just doesn't seem fair. i shouldn't have hit snooze on the alarm clock. i should've taken another route to school. i should've left the house earlier. how did 15 other moms get in front of us in the space of 2 minutes. were they camped out overnight? and why do i almost always feel that way. that no matter how hard i try, i'm so often gonna come up a day late and a dollar short.

it was just such a dissapointment. and i'm stuck between the dissapointment of only the first 15 getting to participate and the wondering if i could do something about it so in the future, noone is left out on the side-lines...

i've been in a slump, anyway, and i just can't seem to drag myself out of it. yet again, work has been so incredibly frustrating and stressful. but i'm not in a position to leap without looking. and looking isn't getting me very far either, right now. i chose not to tackle my lpn this spring, which has been the right choice, considering the circumstances of the past few months. but trying to step back into the classroom in general, has become a monumental brick wall. i've been so worried about jason finding work again, and after 3 whole months of dedication and perseverance, power walking every day, i only walked 3 x's in july. its like i just gave up. and i don't know how or when or why that happened.i didn't ostrich my head in the sand. but i think i dug my toes in real deep and haven't wanted to get back up.

God? if you can hear me....its me again, margaret.

and thank you. for this . (pause the ol' music box down yonder and watch)