She's at it Again!

I am still receiving congratulations from parents at school on Girl's award. I am still bragging and saying, "Yes, we are terribly proud of her. She truly IS such a wonderful Girl." Everyone asks how she does it? What is it about her that makes her so wonderful? Well, obviously she gets that from me, and I got that from my mother (you're welcome, Mom). In this pic, she's gathering the food that they collected during a food drive at school and getting it ready for delivery to the local food pantry. How DOES she do it? She's in 8th grade and already more overextended than I...ok, she can't be MORE overextended since most of my overextension goes hand in hand with her crazy schedule, but for a 14yr old girl, she is overextended. Tell me if this doesn't make you want to collapse (and this is just a normal week):

Drama Club after school 1 - 2 days/wk, orchestra at lunch 2 - 3 days/wk, student council (I have NO idea when THEY meet), yearbook committee 1/mo at 7:00am, Girl Scouts 1 -2 x/mo, more at the holidays, basketball practice/game 6 out of 7 days/wk, softball practice/tournament 1-2x/week, babysitting - standing 1/wk after school gig...and seriously, the list goes on.

With all of this, she still manages to find time to achieve High Honors at school, to be a force of nature in life, on the court, field, diamond or whatever sports venue she's playing, be a phenomenal friend, an amazing daughter, and an absolutely supportive sister. She is sandwiched by her brothers, and keeps up with them both. She "gets" SmallBoy. She knows how to work with him, anticipate situations, handle meltdowns. She takes what LargeBoy, as the older brother, dishes out - and gives right back.

She's a strong girl. She's gone through this horrible crap with Ex - through the divorce, through her father's coniption fit about my remarriage, through all of the crap Ex is pulling about SmallBoy, through the crap he's pulling now about taxes. She's seen the ugly side of life, the real, the unfortunate, the underprivileged, those who make us look wealthy (and we are SOOOOOO not). She appreciates what we have, even if it's not as much as we'd like. She has compassion. She stands up for a cause and for her beliefs.

An example of that would be the viewpoint/opinion blurb that was printed in one of our local newspapers on Wednesday. I can't link it for you because it's been removed from their website. Our village is up in arms over playing night games on the football field at the high school. Various reasons include the proximity of the residents to the blaring lights, their concern over people "lingering", parking issues (which, are a joke in this town to begin with), and the race/achievement gap that seems to be ever present. This particular viewpoint was posted along with a picture of the students of our high school marching in support of lighting the football stadium. The students shown marching in this picture were of mixed races - black, white, yellow, purple, green, whatever - it shouldn't matter. One African-American student, representing the football team, in his school jersey, was walking to the right of the student carrying the a sign in support of lighting the stadium. This student was making the peace sign across his body with his right hand at the sign. The viewpoint/opinion blurb that was written by one of the residents in our village accused this student of flashing gang signs in the picture, thus pointing out that we shouldn't light the stadium, because it will attract gangs. He also stated that this photo confirms that our high school has a gang problem. Not only that, but he, through that, accused this student, who he does not know, of being a gang banger. Well, you can imagine the uproar and outrage from the school community, the residents of the village, and the student's family.

This accusation affected not only the school, but the student and is family directly. Regardless of the outcome or anyone's opinion, my point is about my daughter. She, being the wonderful person that she is, listened to LargeBoy explain the whole situation clearly, listened to LargeBoy's letter to the editor (the whole school is writing letters - LargeBoy's is amazing and extremely well written, btw, and, if I find a copy, I will post it for you), and then immediately went online and responded to the paper directly with her own letter of disgust, disappointment, and apology, as a resident of our village, to the football player's family. This from an 8th grader. I'm so proud. She fights for what she believes in.

She's always doing something for someone. She's totally selfless - ok, not totally, she IS a teenager, but you get the idea. I'm so proud of my children. They are amazing. What a wonderful gift I was given.