14 Kinds of Awesome

I forced myself out of bed at 5:45 this morning, 30 minutes after our various alarms started buzzing and rocking out some kind of digital samba. It's the new reality of our lives with a high schooler. And it's undermining my longtime claim that I am a morning person.

High schooler and hubby out the door, I tried to revive myself with a few chapters of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. My middle schooler -- the more self-efficient of our two kids -- was getting herself dressed for Picture Day.

My 11-year-old having an Awesome moment.

"Why don't you wear your new jeans skirt, instead of those soccer shorts?" I started.

Which quickly evolved into, "Look at all the things in this closet that still have tags on. I bought you those blue pants six months ago!"

I admit to being a veteran of The Mother-Daughter Closet Wars. But mostly from the other side of the hamper. The memory of my mother and me battling over my favorite old sweatpants (too thin to wear to school), too-dark nail polish and lipstick, and jeans (I'd just gotten the holes perfect when Mom threw them out) are usually enough for me to shut my  mouth and leave my kid and her closet alone.

My girl was about to walk out the door: tears in eyes, shoulders slumped, hair hanging over face. I thought about a blog post a friend (and HS girl-mom) shared with me this weekend.

The name of the blog is "Redefine Girly: Let's Change the Way We Think about Our Girls." The post is titled, "Waking Up Full of Awesome."

Not only did I not wake up full of awesome, I un-awesomed my daughter today. Here's an excerpt from the "Redefine Girly" blog post:

There was a time when you were five years old,

and you woke up full of awesome.

You knew you were awesome.

You loved yourself.

You thought you were beautiful,

even with missing teeth and messy hair and mismatched socks inside your grubby sneakers.

You loved your body, and the things it could do.

You thought you were strong.

You knew you were smart.

  

Do you still have it?

The awesome.

Did someone take it from you?

Ouch.

I had to change my thinking to fix it. On the way to the bus stop, I pointed out some of the awesome things my daughter did this morning:

#1 Awesome -- You made your bed.

#2, #3, #4 Awesome -- You brushed your teeth, washed your face and brushed your hair.

She was starting to get into it already. I wasn't getting eye-rolls. I detected a smile.

#5 Awesome -- Did you remember to pack your gym clothes? You did? Awesome.

#6 Awesome -- "I packed my lunch." No, I packed your lunch. "Mom, that's your #1 Awesome. But I packed my lunch in my backpack. That counts."

#7 Awesome -- You remembered your clarinet.

Soon, the kid was laughing at the every-day stuff that "counted," and trying to think of ways to bolster my awesome-list (since teeth,  hair and face counted as three for her, she reasoned, it should count for three on my list too) so I could also be Full of Awesome. We both made it to 14 Kinds of Awesome before the bus came.

Feeling a lot more Awesome -- even in the rain.

I even got credit for wearing pants (because not wearing any pants to the middle school bus stop would be the opposite of awesome).

Have an Awesome Day.