Dear Future Madison,
I’ve had a bit of writers block these days. I’ve lost connection with writing and just honestly needed a break. I lost my confidence. So I regrouped. I thought back to when it was just me and you. I recalled the first Summer we spent together at the camp. You were eight months old and after being stuck in the condo all winter long I decided to move us there for the Summer. Where we could be with Nunney and GG everyday and Daddy was even closer to work. It was by far the best Summer. Then I thought back to why I started this website to begin with and I remembered it was my way of journaling your childhood. Pictures, stories, recipes, and everything else a long the way. So instead of stressing myself over how to make money from this thing called blogging I decided to go back to where it all began. With you. I’m just going to write to document you and your little brothers life, cook and share recipes with friends and family and let whatever else just happen. It’s about time things just happen.
You and your brother at such difficult ages right now. He is testing and rebelling because Momma and Daddy are disciplining and he doesn’t like learning responsibilities and being a “big boy.” You are having such a hard time with anxiety and learning even more responsibilities yourself. I think the sentence that almost made me spit my coffee out last week was when I asked you to put your pajamas in the laundry and I got “Why do I have to evvvvvverything!??” A part of me wanted to laugh of course but the other part of me bit my tongue because I wanted to scream “You have NO idea how much I do!!!!” I finally told Daddy it was time to visit Rebecca again, your therapist. Your anxiety was through the roof, you were crying at every school drop off again, your lack of confidence was becoming more and more noticeable and your jealousy over your brother was becoming more evident. You and I were fighting over every little word. I cried one night to your father because I didn’t know where your anger was coming from and it was only being directed at me. I said something has to be done because if you were already talking to me with such nastiness at five how would it be when you are 16? I was feeling so defeated.
Well it was the best thing we could have done because with only a few suggestions from Rebecca we can already see a huge difference in your attitude. She said you were fighting with me to get attention. Negative attention was better than no attention at all so you would pick fights with me. Yes you were! When I sat back and did what Rebecca told me to do I couldn’t believe that my sweet girl was indeed picking a fight with me at five! So now we have more snuggles, alone big girl time, bribery bucks and I’m no longer giving Drew his way all the time because “it’s easier”. The jealousy has let up big time because Drew is having his time outs and is learning all the things you do.
Though there are days that I want to pull out my hair over all of the fighting you and your brother do, I decided to look at it a different way. Dear future Madison, your strong about your opinion, and you don’t give in. Someday it will pay off. You will be strong and confident and you’ll believe in yourself more.
The days where I have to answer a million questions a day about the color of the sky, why ducks fly or why the sun always follows us made me think . Dear future Madison, all of those questions you are so curious about may mean that you just want to learn everything you possibly can. That someday you will enjoy school and learning new things. You will always strive to aim higher and that is an amazing thing!
Your lack of confidence is draining. It exhausts me when days come and go and I’m simply giving you kudos for breathing. You require a “thata girl” a lot! I’ve come to see that it’s not such a bad thing. Dear future Madison, Momma has had low self esteem all her life but all it means is that maybe you’ll be a little like me and that is ok do you want to know why? I always put others before myself because I am a caring person. That is a beautiful trait. If you get any trait from me sweet girl I hope it’s my genuine one.
After hours and hours of watching you jump around and even getting involved in whatever active adventure your imagination is taking us on, I’m so tired. I see the creations you make and have even sometimes whispered to myself “She’s so strange!”. Dear future Madison, I see a girl who doesn’t care what others think and imagine all of the things your going to succeed in because of that.
Bribery Bucks! Best thing ever invented. Great article about our little girl sweetie!