On parenting

I love being a Mom.  Actually, I love, love, LOVE it.  It's the most wonderful and hardest job I've ever had.  Among my goals as a Mom is to raise girls that have good self-esteem, are curious about the world around them, and leave the world a better place than they found it. 

Lots of times I don't really know if I'm doing this Mom job right or not, so my approach to motherhood is that I just go with my gut on hard situations and decisions.  I find my gut has never let me down even if it tells me to do something I think is a bit curious.

This week Julia had her school book fair.  She has become a voracious reader the past 18 months and I've been borrowing most of the books from the library.  However, there are certain books she likes to read over and over again and she wants her very own copy for her bookshelf so it's there whenever she wants to read it.  I completely understand this since I love little more than having my nose planted in a good book.  We talked about her class visit to the book fair and decided she would take some money from her piggy bank and buy her books.  This isn't because we didn't want to buy her books, it's more because we are teaching her about the value of money.  We put the money in an envelope and sealed it up.  There were several bills and a lot of change. 

Judy Blume is her current favorite author.  I loved Judy Blume as a child and find it enjoyable to revisit her books.  As expected, Julia came home from school the day of the book fair full of energy and talking a mile a minute.  She showed me the Judy Blume books she purchased and told me she also bought a book for Emma.  A book for Emma!  That she purchased with her own money. She made sure to tell me and Emma that it wasn't a Christmas present because she already bought and wrapped that at the school holiday fair.  No, this was just a book she wanted to buy Emma because she thought she would like it.  And Emma grinned from ear to ear when she showed it to her.  It's an early reader book and is about a girl that rides a horse and Julia just knew she had to get it for Emma.  She didn't bat an eyelash about spending her own money she took from her own piggy bank on the book.  For her sister.  Instead of buying the two books by Judy Blume that she wanted.

There was a bit of a wrinkle, though.  Julia was a few cents short for the two books mostly because she decided to bring coins instead of a bill for the last dollar and didn't bring quite enough coins to add up to a dollar.  So she put the books on hold and asked Chris at the end of the day if he could go with her to purchase the books and lend her the extra 10 cents or whatever it was and of course he did.  While there he decided he wanted to buy her a book and so she was able to get the second Judy Blume book.  It's not unusual for Chris to buy a book for the girls at the book fair but I don't think Julia thought of that because she was genuinely thrilled about it. 

My heart feels full in these moments.  The moments when I realize my little girl cares so very much about her sister that she decided on her own to buy her a book from the book fair just because she thought she would like it.  When she wasn't selfishly thinking of how many books she could get only for her and how she realized in the moment how much fuller life is if we share.  It's moments like these when I say a prayer of thanks to God for bringing my two special little girls into my life.  And it's these little moments that make me feel like Chris and I are doing a pretty decent job at this parenting gig.