What’s In My Purse

This post was inspired by another one of the A Beautiful Mess blog posts.  It’s a terrible picture but I wanted to get my red boots in there because they’re red boots!  What was in my purse at the time this photo was taken is the following: a chevron patterned pencil pouch that I carry with me everywhere I go, two E.L.F. lip glosses, about twenty tickets from Chuck e Cheese, my wallet and cellphone, and a file folder with an essay in it.

I’m standing on the steps of the Hyatt House in Gaithersburg waiting to read that essay in front of Kate Hood and Stephanie Stearns Dulli  the producer and director of a show called Listen To Your Mother.  During the show, people read from five minute essays having to do with, you guessed it, motherhood.

While I auditioned, Jesse took Hadley and Harper on a Girl Scout outing to go snow tubing in Pennsylvania.

I was pretty nervous for Harper. First of all, she isn’t a Girl Scout.  You have to be in Kindergarten and while the troop leader said it was fine to bring siblings, I know that Harper’s been to so many of “Hadley’s things” and I was worried she wouldn’t know where she fit in. Would the older girls know more? Would they include her? Would they be able to do things Harper can’t do yet?

I was also nervous that she might be afraid to go down the hill.  It’s a pretty intense slope if I do say so myself. Would the speed be too extreme for her? What if she falls off? What if she gets to the top and realizes that she doesn’t think she can do it and wants to turn around. Can she do that?

Turns out, she loved it.

She loved all of it.  Hanging out with the Girl Scouts, sledding, the speed, the flutter in her stomach when she was mid-slide, I’m pretty sure it was the best thing of 2014 so far.

I’m glad she did it. I’m glad she tried. Because now, the next time she tries something a little scary, if she doesn’t get it – if she falls, or misses a step, or doesn’t get picked, or what have you – she’ll have this experience to look at.  “See?” she’ll tell herself, “I did that.  And it was fun and scary and I’ll be able to do other things someday, too.”

 

 

And so will I.