Is it just me?

Is it just me, or am I the only mean mommy on the face of the earth? My sweet Caroline was enjoying lunch at a friend’s house this past week. When I picked her up, the mom…my friend, told me a cute little anecdote from my darling daughter…it went something like this:

“My momma is my best friend, but she is always mean at me.”
“Why is she mean to you? Do you listen to her?”
“No.”
“Well, if you listened to her, maybe she wouldn’t have to be so mean.”
Thank you dear, sweet friend. I love this friend because she shares my heart for raising a daughter…in fact she has two.

I find that girls are designed to make their mother’s nuts. I know I was. I did my very best to get under my mom’s skin. I look back and feel so bad. Really. I often find myself hoping she can hear my pleas for forgiveness. If she can’t, I will make a point to apologize to her on my first day in Heaven. I spent decades driving that poor women crazy and now I am reaping the bounty of my sowing!

I love Caroline, much like my mother loved me. I love her so much and that is why I am “so mean at her”. We cried together tonight. She and I had a girl’s night.

It was suppose to go like this:

Eat Dinner…at McDonalds…commercial style: sharing fries, giggling, dabbing vanilla icecream on each other’s nose, embracing pne another in the booth, because Mcdonalds simply makes a girl happy…

Run one more errand…giggle as we race the cart through the store, trying samples of perfume and lotion, browsing the magazine rack…

Home for a bath…the kind of bath she was looking forward to…without her splashy “stinky” brother…

Well, instead the evening really went like this:

Run errand…”Caroline, get your shoes on and get out of the car! The store closes in one minute, I can see the lady vacuuming!”

Eat at McDonalds…Stop touching the trash can, get off the floor, PLEASE eat something…

One more errand…”I don’t want that ugly card for my daddy…I WANT A NEW CARD…WHY YOU SO MEAN AT ME????”

Bathtime…Poop. That’s all I have to say. We cleared and cleaned the tub, headed to bed and called it a night.

So, the night is done and we are in her room trying to get pjs on, and I started crying. She started too…we embraced and talked about how we need to make a point of being kind to each other. That we love each other and we need to show that love. Thankfully God is not a mother!

No, God is an amazing “forgiver”; always patient and kind. Always loving and gentle. Never, ever “mean at us”. What an example. My prayer tonight will be that I am able to show love to my daugher the way God shows love to His. I will practice being kind and gentle. I will practice patience. I will be forgiving. I will be forgiving not only of Caroline, but of myself. See, tomorrow the sun will rise and the day will start fresh and new. Today will be over, forever. I will not dwell on what I did wrong and should have done right, I will have forgiven Carly and myself. I will forget. I will thank the Lord that when He forgives, He forgets.

If you are a mother of a daughter…you are not alone, we are in this together. We are raising strong, will-full young women who will set the world on fire…and maybe, just maybe, be “mean at” their own someday. By then we should have all the answers!!