Enough

These pictures were supposed to be all about the ice cream cones. The pure bliss of eating ice cream outside on a hot day after hopping out of the blow-up pool. What a total mess the girls were making of themselves and all that… But when I look at these pics I get caught up looking at the ones of Amanda…I was trying to figure out what it was about her that kept drawing me back and I finally figured it out: it’s the confidence. It’s the I’m okay exactly as I am-ness about her.

She doesn’t care at all that she’s in a bathing suit, with messy hair, ice cream on her upper lip; fingers still neon pink from painting earlier in the day. She’s so okay with herself. I’d give anything to be able to bottle up some of this okay-ness so I could hand it back to her one day when she’s not quite so sure of herself.

That’s one of the worries I have about sending her off to school: she’ll have to start dealing with the real world… the mean kids and the people who don’t think she’s the most amazing creature they’ve ever encountered. I hate to think about her confidence getting chipped away and battered.

I wish there was a way to ensure that a big part of her fearless okay just as I am self would remain intact. If only I could bubble-wrap it and put it in a fireproof safe for that day when some teacher makes her feel like she’s not smart enough or some boy makes her feel like she’s not pretty enough or some magazine makes her feel like she’s not thin enough. Even us as her parents are bound to damage her somehow no matter how hard we try not to. When the world tries to make her feel like she’s not ENOUGH I want her to hold on to this part of herself that doesn’t worry whether she’s enough because she just is.