Proud Mom

It’s hard to believe but soon my little girl will be two and a half. I love this age, but, then again, I’ve loved every stage since she blessed our lives with her presence.

From the very beginning, we’ve received many compliments on how beautiful and happy she is. Early on, it seemed clear to me that she was just born with an upbeat spirit and the beauty, well, she clearly hit the genetic jackpot. There was a LOT to choose from when you combined the two families — a lot of very different DNA — and she came out looking like a carefully designed specimen designed to make people smile and knock them dead with her beauty wherever she goes.

I recall being really hung up on one particular 3-D ultrasound picture that gave the illusion of my daughter looking frighteningly like one of my husband’s less attractive uncles (I know, I’m going to hell). I obsessed over this picture for months. I later realized, of course, that very few of us would look very good with our face smashed into a pillow which was basically her cozy position in the womb. Now I look at that picture and see nothing but cuteness and beauty–even with the smashed features.

But, even more than beauty, my daughter is the embodiment of joy. Wherever she goes, she makes people smile. It’s truly uncanny. I’ve seen her turn a distinct frown into an unsuspecting smile just by smiling and saying hello to someone.

This past weekend, we wandered into one of the boutiques in our neighborhood to look for a purse for me. It’s a quaint neighborhood spot and a pretty friendly Asian woman dressed in business attire immediately welcomed us into her store and gave us the lay of the land. She also said hello to my daughter and Ellie ate up the attention immediately. She began to talk with the shop owner, smiling, sharing her proudly rehearsed ABCs…the shop owner couldn’t get over it and just kept saying “She is so nice. So nice.”  She went on to talk about the kids that come in with their Moms that are always whining or crying. You could tell that Ellie was really making her day.

We ended up having to get home for Ellie’s nap before I could make a decision so we told the shop owner that maybe we’d be back later. I didn’t really think that we’d return but I also knew that I had fallen a bit in love with a certain purse and just might need to go back.

We all ended up walking back after nap time as my love for a certain purse grew in magnitude with each passing hour. The shop owner seemed genuinely happy to see Ellie again. She immediately addressed her by name and Ellie began to engage her once again. And, again, the shop owner just kept saying  “She’s so nice. So nice.”

So nice, in fact, that she threw in an extra 10% discount. We now call this the “Ellie discount.”

At that point, it dawned on me that maybe her father and I are doing OK by her. It’s SO hard to know if you’re doing the right thing for your children– instilling the right values, and manners.  Loving them is easy but teaching them how to be in the world is not so easy.  I forget that a big part of this is modeling for your children how to be in the world. I don’t think about this too often since I’m usually thinking about what to TEACH Ellie and not always about how I should be acting. But, I’m reminded that our children are watching all of the time.

So maybe, just this one time, I’ll take a little credit for raising a daughter that makes so many, so happy.

So nice.