Leanna Kay

As you turn eight, I’m continually amazed as I watch you blossom from my baby girl into the start of the young lady I know you’ll one day be. I love that you’re becoming so responsible, feeding your pets without being reminded and picking up after yourself. A year ago, the pets could have starved and you wouldn’t have realized it until I stopped buying pet food.
 
This last year has been such a journey of maturity for you. In the last twelve months, I’ve watched you go from the little girl who clutched my hand tightly enough to leave marks, to the girl who barely waves as I fade into the background. When we went to the beach last summer, you wanted to make friends so badly with a little girl playing nearby in the surf. You kept watching her and commenting with such longing in your voice about how much fun she was having jumping in the waves. But you just couldn’t make yourself take those few steps across the sand and surf to say “hello.”

“You could help me, Mommy,” you finally said, with your hand firmly planted inside mine. “If you helped me say hello, I could do it.”

So we made the trip across the sand and surf together. And after the hellos were said, you spent much of the rest of the week playing with this little girl, Hannah. At the end of the week, you hugged goodbye and promised to write, which you both did for several months.

As school started, there were days when you came home all smiles. And then there were the days when you barely made it off the bus before the tears dripped down your face and you claimed your friends didn’t like you anymore. You broke my heart the day you said your only friend in the world was Hannah, a summertime friend you’d likely never see again. I wanted to hop on the school bus and go with you so I could make it all right. But even though moms can walk across sand and surf, there are places we can’t travel.

I soon found you didn’t need me to fix your problems. You went right back to school and told your friends how you felt and suddenly all was better. The days of school bus tears ended and as the year went on, you turned from the unsure girl who thought she had no friends to the glue that holds together many of the friendships in your second grade classroom. I was so proud the day your friends were fighting at recess and you sat them down and helped them work out their differences.

I suggested you’d make a good psychologist someday. After asking me what a psychologist did, you were having none of that boring job. You’ve already decided you’re going to be a rock star when you grow up. Mostly I think you just want to live in a mansion and never be forced to eat tuna again. The limo rides and hot tubs appeal to you as well. And the wardrobe, let’s not forget the wardrobe.

Speaking of clothes, you’ve been trying on many different outfits lately. You always want my opinion on how you look. I was concerned a few weeks ago when you asked me if your shirt was sexy. After a few subtle questions (Where in the world did you hear THAT word?!!!), I figured out you still don’t really know anything about sex. I believe you still think sex is just a brand of deodorant and that sexy means sparkly.

I sense that you try on so many outfits because you’re trying on different roles for yourself. At home, you are outspoken and outgoing. But outside our house, people see you as quiet and shy. Because of that, you try not to make waves, many times apologizing for wrongs you didn’t commit because you always sense you’re at fault.

Just this week, you apologized to me for going to bed ten minutes late. I hugged you and said, “This was nothing to be sorry for. Now washing my toothbrush in the toilet, that would be another story.” You giggled, compelling me to ask just where my toothbrush had been. Joking aside, I hope my words sunk in.
As you struggle to make sense of who you are, my wish for you is that you’ll soon realize you are so much more than what you think you are. You are kind.. You are loving. You are funny. You are responsible. You are smart.

Even though you may be shy and unsure of what others think of you, you never need to apologize for being who you are. The Lauren I know is pretty special and I for one, cannot wait to journey with you through your eighth year on this planet.

I finally have to face the cold, hard facts. At thirty-nine years of age, I’m not as good of a driver as my five-year-old niece.

This bitter reality was thrown in my face yesterday as we played the Wii version of MarioKart - a game which accurately simulates the driving experience. Well, accurately if you’re ever required to drive through a mushroom field bouncing off fungi or if you suddenly find yourself in an abandoned mine careening out of control down the railroad tracks. In both of these situations, you’d better pray it’s my niece at the wheel and not me.

I had particular difficulty navigating the abandoned mine. First of all, the mine wasn’t well lit. But worse, the tracks were narrow and surrounded by both sides by a drop off plunging hundreds of feet into darkness below. I know all about the darkness because at least a dozen times in a row, I drove my computer woman off the side to plunge to her certain death.

This wouldn’t have been so eery had I chosen a cartoon character to drive my car. But the Wii game allows you to make a character that looks just like yourself. When the suicide driver bears a close personal resemblance, the stakes seem a bit higher. But luckily there’s no such thing as permanency in a computer game. Apparently you can drive your car over a cliff a dozen times and still pop back onto the roadway without a scratch.

“How come your person keeps coming back?” My niece asked. “Shouldn’t you be dead by now?”

“You’d think.” I muttered as I slowly steered my cart back onto the track, scared to even touch the button to move it forward. Not that it really mattered because in seconds my niece was declaring her victory.

“I never, ever win, Aunt Leanna. Everyone else is a better driver.”

Well apparently not everyone.

We recently had another snow day (that makes eight for the year, but who’s counting?). The kids were bored so I invited their cousins to play. The cousins bring the count to five boys and two girls. When you have the many kids stuck inside for an afternoon, the gender differences become amazingly clear.

The girls? The girls spent the afternoon sedately playing dolls and quietly listening to music. I think there may have even been a tea party thrown in there. Once they came out and politely asked for a snack which they ate with a minimum of fuss and absolutely no belching.

The boys? The boys made up an unnamed game which I’ll just call “Beat your Brother.” This game involved chasing each other screaming through the house. You could only capture your opponent by tackling him and punching him in the face. I suppose broken noses garnered you extra points, but we’ll never know because I put a stop to that activity the minute I saw Chris pinning Drew to the ground and pummeling him.

“But we’re just playing a game,” Chris said in his own defense.

“Play something nicer,” I insisted. Because I’m a mom and I’m mean. And being female, I clearly didn’t understand the need to punch.

I was going to suggest a tea party but then I thought better of it. Five boys set loose with dainty glass tea cups? I don’t think so.

The game they ended up playing involved dart guns. They chased each other around the house and tried to shoot their opponent in the butt with a foam dart. These boys probably each have permanent dart suction marks on their butts, but at least there were no broken bones.