A and I stayed up late Saturday night talking. She said that the one thing she misses about school was who she was in school. She was the girl who was not afraid to talk to the boys. She got along better with the boys than the girls. The girls were always begging her to go ask a certain boy if that boy liked a certain girl. She said her lunch was interrupted daily and she misses that. She was also the one that went with someone to guidance to report a problem. She misses being that person.
I see that so strongly as her identity. Being that strong girl.
That is what my soul searching was about, though she didn't know it.
She also went on and on about the annoying girls and their cell phones and clothes and texting and catty remarks (which was why she was so often accompanying someone to guidance!).
She asked if she and I could have some time alone to do something on Sunday.
I asked her if she wanted to go to the mall or the movies or to get mani/pedis...the things we usually do when we take time alone together.
She thought about it and said that she wanted to make a "Happiness Notebook" of all of the things that make her happy.
I have such a notebook. I made it when I was about 16. I have poems and song lyrics that I love, photos and pictures from magazines, cards from family and friends. It's a great representation of who I was then--actually, of who I am. Pictures of small towns and country homes and cozy rooms and children and cute guys :) I look at it and remember what is important, what matters in my life, where I have been and where I am going. It cheers me up when I am blue. It makes me feel like...well, ME!
I have shown the girls this book numerous times. They love to look at it.
So, she and I spent Sunday afternoon at the dining room table, making her a book of her own.
She had gotten a scrapbooking kit from somewhere for her birthday or Christmas or something and I had told her not to use it until she knew what she wanted to use it for.
I suggested she look through some photos.
She asked to use my scrapbooking supplies.
We found the lyrics to her favorite Taylor Swift song (we all LOVE Taylor Swift!!!).
She wrote a list of her favorite things:
She found photos in magazines of hairstyles that she likes. She is really into hair right now.
She wrote quotes from her favorite "Mother-Daughter Book Club" novels on paper and we pasted it in the book. We also included the covers of some of her other favorite books.
We included some of her artwork.
She is proud of her book.
She feels it is a good representation of who she is.
It makes her HAPPY :)
