treasure my daughter like she deserves

making champurrado. I realize her mouth is wide open in a lot of the photos we have. Do you know that little girl never stops talking? She is so funny!

Or the struggles that I am going through in my life affect the way I interact with my baby girl.

It’s hard being a single mom. I have a lot on my shoulders. I feel very…..overwhelmed sometimes. I get frustrated with life and a little sad and alone feeling. I try to keep it under wraps…but I think sometimes it seeps out a little too much and then my daughter feels sad too.

This is an area for continuous improvement in my life. My girl is such an angel…I love her so much. And I always want to treat her like the precious heart-touching sweetheart that she is.

Last night she did a 1000 piece puzzle and had pieces all over the floor in piles. I shifted one to the side (not mixing them, mind you, because I predicted they were in some sort of order), and she told me…”ohhh…you ruined the moon and sun”.

She had one pile set up with mostly yellow pieces in a circle and white pieces in a crescent around the edge…that was the moon and sun….darker pieces of three varying colors were in three groups. Those were apparently stars. See…teenagers can still be so innocent and so very endearing.

We have talked and a lot of our recent frustrations are passing. I am very proud of her…when we talked, I gave her my point of view and she agreed with some of the things I said but also had her own points and some requests for changes that I could make. We came to some decent compromises and I have already seen action on her part..and have been striving to meet my end as well.

There was a few recent occurances that took place where she showed incredible merit (I was not surprised).

And I am tickled pink that she has joined the Physics club, to be on the team for her school that will compete in the Los Angeles County science fair.

I feel so bad…but I need to see a little more enthusiasm and a little more self-sufficiency out of her. We are not having our happiest time lately because there is a lot of discipline going on….but I’m sure we’ll work through it….

Or are you 16 right now, or looking forward to being 16?

It’s tough in that your adulthood is within sight, yet so is your childhood. It’s starting to hit home that someday, not too far away, you will be out on your own in some way or another…yet you really can’t relate to what that all entails.

On the other hand, you are still a kid who just wants to have fun with your friends. Hopefully you’re not doing too many self-destructive things…hopefully not any.

At the same time you want to assert your rights…you’re not a kid. It’s confusing.

Anyway, teenagers are so moody and conflicted…but so precious when you can get them to laugh. I love my teenager. She thinks I’m a corny shlob for writing these things….hahaha.

She went to a Rockabilly show last night and took a ton of pictures for her mom. Here’s one that I particularly like of the crowd…

I love her more than I love anybody else in the world. She is my favorite person. She touches my heart to the deepest level. I would die for her. She is an angel.