First her arm brushed mine. Once, twice, three times. Then her hip bumped mine in the same triplet rhythm. Since it was still 85 degrees at 10:30 p.m., I had it on the tip of my tongue to say, with some irritation, “Could you please not walk on top of me?” when I felt her fingertips casually brush mine. No, not brush, seek…purposefully. Almost immediately our fingers were interlaced, and we walked on that way in the steamy Las Vegas night, hip to hip, arm to arm, hands sandwiched together in between. I honestly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
She’s never been a clingy kid, this independent girl of mine. As a baby she never wanted to be rocked to sleep, just put down in her crib where she’d smile and stretch out, happy to be “home”…alone. That should have told me a lot about the years to come.
And, as much as the eye rolls, hair flips and head snaps have been part of the tween (now teen) years, it seems like her confidence has grown in proportion to her attitude. Typical tween/teen issues haven’t bothered her like I remembering them bothering me and my friends. Whether she lets teenage angst run off her like water off a duck’s back or just rolls her eyes and declares, “Whatever!” to the latest conspiracy or injustice in her youthful world, I have come to think of my daughter as impervious to stress and pressure. Yet as my beautiful Midwestern middle-schooler surveyed the griminess and garishness of Sin City at night, I felt her grip tighten and her body mold itself to mine, and I knew there was a chink in the armor. And that’s a good thing…
Because in my momly opinion, Las Vegas at night should inspire sensory overload in a thirteen year old, and we weren’t even out on the Strip, just on the walkway which runs overhead. In truth, our Las Vegas adventure was not exactly a family vacation. It was the ultimate grand prize awarded by Schwan’s Foods to my daughter and three of her friends from H Yet even though visions of American Idol have danced in their heads, this trip was not only a dream come true (corporate jets, stretch limos, backstage passes, bodyguards and playing at the Vegas House of Blues for 1,200 National School Nutrition Conference attendees) but also a little gifted education done outside the box. Because as my mom, who just retired from fifty years in education, said after a pre-Vegas rehearsal, “What do you do, as the teacher, to take kids like this to the next level?” I’d argue that you do what Dave Wonder did and give them a way to keep on exploring the gifts they’ve been given, nurturing their independence and encouraging them to soar, all good things. Not surprisingly, this trip has them planning for the future, trying to figure out how to make this good thing last. Yet in my momly opinion, discovering that my girl may still need her hand held at times was both a gift and an education and, perhaps, the best good thing of all.
Congratulations K! Rachel...you made me cry...and I loved it!
Posted by: Christine | July 06, 2009 at 06:17 PM