LOVE MORE

Me. Olivia. Firstborn. Sweetheart. Pure of heart. Lovely. Lively. Learning. Growth. Struggle. Confusion. Guilt. Increased Hormones. Push. Pull. Deep breaths. Many prayers. Forgiveness.

My motto as we enter into this new territory of puberty and "tween"-ness is simple to love more.

I was listening to this podcast a few days ago and it was just what I needed to hear. I would be lying myself straight into outer darkness if I said that I feel like I am currently serving as an effective parent to this little vision of beauty, goodness and smarts. We drive each other to distraction, irritation, insanity and a heaping dose of angry. But you know what? By some merciful act by the Almighty we still love each other.

We don't know what the confounded peaches to do with one another but we love each other. We are getting in magnanimous practice at forgiveness and learning to practice calm reactions when we really want to scream our eyeballs bloodshot with rage and haywire hormones. Somehow, we got offtrack during bedtime tonight, at first all was going all shipshape, and then it went south all quick like. I commenced with a lecture and she began crying. I left the room as a grumpy mommy dragon and sat down at the computer, feeling guilty for not having just let things roll off my back.

I didn't know what to do to put things right. I considered asking for advice from some online friends. It felt no good. I got onto Pinterest--yeah right. And then I remembered the podcast..."LOVE MORE". So, I went to her room, got under her covers, gathered her into my arms and told her that I loved her. I told her that I was learning how to be good mother to a 9.5 year old- that I have never done this before. I told her that our relationship was growing up because she was. I told her I was growing up too.

 I told her that we were learning how to argue AND how to make up --always make up-- because we love each other. I told her that we weren't always going to know what to do nor would be feel like being loving in the midst of being upset with each other but that was when we both needed it the most--that we needed to LOVE MORE.  I promised her that I would pray and ask Heavenly Father every night to teach me how to love her and be a good mother her.  I asked her if she would pray and ask Him to teach her how to love her mother and continue how to be a daughter of God. She said she would. I kissed her head,  the head that still smells like it did when she was a little newborn, and told her I loved her and said goodnight.

 LOVE MORE--ask for help and guidance to always LOVE MORE. You know, I am making a vinyl project out of this. Right? One for her room and one for the kitchen over the stairs. We can do this. We can LOVE MORE.