Happy Birthday!!

Hi everybody, I know I've been gone for ten thousand years. I really don't have an explanation, well I do but it will take ten thousand more years and really... who has time for that. I don't.

This is Happy Blog day!! Happy birthday to The Diva!! My sweet, darling, 17 year old girl! I love her so much, and I am so proud of her, and I am blessed to have been allowed to have been part of her life for the last 5 years.

She has grown so much in the last 5 years, I wish I had a picture for every day of her life. I wish I had been there in the pictures where she is chubby-cheeked and smiling for all the world to see.

I wish I had been there when my mother 'guilted' her 'new' granddaughter into smiling for the pictures she took days ago. I love the fact that she loves my mom and calls her 'Grammy' like she had grown up all her life with a Grammy. Y'all, I wish like hell I could put a brick on her head and keep her from growing any more. I know I can't stop it, but oh my... what it will be like in two and a half years when she has to go off to college and spread her wings and fly. I can't wait, and yet I'm scared to death.

I know this has been a sappy post, but I wish everyone could see our beautiful girl. So pretty inside and out, all I could have ever wished for!!

How do we teach our daughter's better?

I went shopping with the Diva today for the prom dress. She is going with a boy as a friend only, which I appreciate because she is still going to have a good time without all the boyfriend pressure.

What I really want to talk about though is the pressure that the Diva feels to be thin and pretty. To give you an idea, she is 5'3" and about 118 pounds. She fluctuates about 5 or 10 pounds, depending on when track season starts. Last year when looking for the perfect 8th grade dance dress she wore a size 4. This year for homecoming she still wore a size 4. Today we had to go up to a size 6. I seriously thought she was going to cry.

We don't focus on looks in our house. I'm a big girl, but I've always been a big girl so this is all I know. I remember the pressure my mom and Mawmaw put on me to diet while I was growing up, and I hated every minute of it. We try to make sure (as best we are able) that the Diva eats 3 healthy meals a day and that she doesn't skip. If I don't watch her she will occasionally skip breakfast, and of course I don't know that she actually eats the lunch she takes to school. I believe her when she tells me she does.

So my question is this, other than encouraging positive body image in our house, how do we keep her from worrying about her weight? Y'all should see her, she is so pretty. She is this tiny, petite little thing with an outstanding personality, but I hate for her to worry so about it.

I know I think "what's the big deal between a 4 and a 6, at least it's not a twenty." The dress was by a different designer, but she is still fretting about it. I want her to grow up with a healthy body image, but short of locking her in her bedroom and taking away her tv and computer I don't know how to keep her from worrying. Then I worry, what a vicious cycle.

JV Cheer Squad, here we come!!

The Diva made the jv cheer squad. I think she's happy, although her first comment was "I don't know why I didn't make varsity I caught the girl they dropped!"

We are officially entering a new era in our household. In a few short months we are going to be the parents of a high school cheerleader! Ack!! What will I do?? After wringing my hands in fear that I may never be home again next year, I have decided...it will be ok. I may never have any money ever again, but I will be ok. When I was filling out the paperwork for her to try out I may have skipped (ran) past the dollar signs attached, but now I am fully aware this will cost me an arm and a leg.

Will they give you $550 if you donate an arm and a leg to science?? Probably not, so my new plan is to start saving now and hope that she gets the summer job she is interviewing for at Six Flags.

Oh, and by the way, we also have a spring formal in two weeks and graduation (8th grade) a week after that. So, we need two dresses, a strapless bra and some rockin' shoes (for the spring formal of course!!)

Pray for me peeps, I'm off to find that bottle of Southern Comfort now. Oh wait...I have to pick her up from track practice tonight! How many things can she find to do before we are both overwhelmed??