Parenting Moments

There are just some days when I feel so absolutely proud of my kids and the kind of people they are turning into. No, this doesn't happen everyday- they are just normal kids after all. But, tonight, when I was so tired from lack of sleep earlier in the week and feeling under the weather myself, my sweet little Anna made me feel that it is all worth it. Here's the deal.....earlier in the week Anna received a birthday party invitation for a friend at school. The party is this Sunday and the invitation states that they will be doing pony rides. I figured they are probably going to a local farm of some kind and I would give the mom a call to figure out where it is and get more details. But, in the meantime, we had told Anna she could go. Needless to say she was pretty pumped up about riding a horse. She has done this once before, again at a birthday party. Well, tonight was 1st grade parents information night at school. I was hoping I would run into the parents of the girl who invited her to this weekend's party and just get more details then. No luck. However, I did talk to one of Anna's other friend's moms who stated that she did call and found out the party is in Rochester and they were going to drive the girls down in a few vans. Yikes. An hour drive in a car with parents I have never met before. It was all I could think about during the information night. I kept going through in my mind how upset Anna was going to be if I didn't let her go and how could I tell her she couldn't go with all her friends and ride horses. The guilty parent complex. So, I got through the night and braced myself to break her heart and have her hate me by telling her I wasn't ok with this plan. And I told her. And she said, "Oh, ok. I understand". No tears, no pleading, no making me feel bad for saying no after I had said yes. And in that moment, I have never been prouder of the beautiful, mature person Anna is. She has always been good at handling disappointment and change and is in general relatively laid back and calm. I now have such a new appreciation for these qualities. Anna was born to do something awesome. I'm not sure what, but for tonight it was making her overtired, stressed out, under the weather mommy feel a little less inadequate as a parent :) Love you bananas!