Simple Joy

I had to write about my weekend. I was awake most of the night thinking about exactly what to say and why... so that it appeared organized. Sorry, didn't have much success with that.

This weekend was a simple joy. I was able to spend it with my 12 year old daughter. Just the two of us, because my husband and son were out on a dad/son campout with thier "tribe".

I was most impressed to begin with by how excited my daughter was for the weekend. She is twelve and I don't really think that spending a weekend with your mom is something that you get excited about at that age. I am thankful though... she is not a typical 12 year old and well, typical is something I have never been.

She couldn't get them out of the house quick enough. Now, I fully expected this to be a weekend of Orlando Bloom movies, as that he decorates her walls and her dad isn't found of Lord of the Rings, and he can only take so much of the Pirates. So I was prepared. But what did she want to watch? The DaVinci Code... yes, my 12 year old. I had already seen it with my husband, there really wasn't anything in the movie that we would object to her seeing, so I put it in.

This lead to a very indepth conversation about God, religion and whether or not I believed the DaVinci Code. Well, to spare you my beliefs and spirituality I asked her what she thought. My children were both baptized catholic, and not at birth. I am not catholic... you can't even call me christian. But I was at a point in my life, where I felt lost. I had walked away from what I had been believing for reasons that I won't go into and decided to try the way most people think you should be... catholic, church, confession and such. I was looking for answers, and I felt it important for my children to have a better basis then I did as a child to start thier journey. Hence they were baptized at 2 and 5.

In the beginning church and prayer was VERY important to my daughter, I am sure that she condemned me to hell every time we missed church. It was very important to her, and I was supportive. On that journey I realized that what I had believe my whole life was actually what I believed and I couldn't buy into organized religion. I tried, I read the Bible, entirely, took classes, I tried... it isn't for me. But I didn't stop going because my daughter was still involved and it was important to her.

That lasted until she was in third fourth grade and the new preacher that came to her school and our church told her, as well as the school, that Muslims were killing Catholics and that they were bad people. My daughter came home in tears, her dad is Muslim, from Pakistan... why would her preacher tell her that. I am thankful that the day she came home upset, her dad was on a business trip and wasn't there. So it lead to a long talk between her and I, and my going to the prinicipal the next day.

I just want to interject that my son was never fond of church and has no desire to go. He is more interested in going to prayer with his dad.

Anyway, after this talk this weekend with my daughter I asked her what she believed. She didn't know, and she didn't know what to do. So I told her to read. Read the Bible, read about Islam, read about Hinduism and such. Read about every religion that she has questions about and figure out what she believes in and why. I will guide her, and her dad told her the same thing this weekend when he came home and she wanted to have the conversation with him. But it had to be her journey, we were only guidepost, and that the best thing for her to do was educate herself. She wants to start with reading the DaVinci Code. I told her that she needed to understand that it was looked at as a book of fiction by most... but if that was were she wanted to start, then she could.

Of course she asked me if I thought it was a book of fiction, and I said this, "The story of the characters are just that, a story, but I believe the basis for it."

The rest of the weekend she did girlie, 12 year old stuff. Shopping... we spent HOURS, yes HOURS in the malls here. We have two very large inside malls here in Dayton, and we went through one, we had to drive to the other. Had it not been cold and rainy I am sure that I would've entertained her at the outside mall called The Greene, whic is my favorite if I have to have one, the hae an amazing bookstore there.

I think she told me how awesome I was about 15 times, which made me laugh. I bought her a book, and Bertie Bots, she is a Harry Potter fan... she is slightly obessed, she shopped for shoes, and movie star sun glasses, she had to have the chocolate dipped strawberries at the chocolate shop. We lived on popcorn and pretzels all weekend, (yes I know), she got hooked on the TV show The Unit, we rented the DVDs because I was missing something and now she is hooked.

But the simple joy I had of getting to know my daughter. We have always had a good relationship and I thought we were close anyway, but rebonding with her this weekend was priceless. She is 12 and I know my time with her where she wants to be with me is limited, and I am not looking forward to the time that she gives me the "Do I Have to.." when I tell her that she and I are together for the weekend again.

I hope it is far away... I hope that she knows how much I love her and how amazing she is to me.

Enjoy your children, get to know them for who they are... not who you think they are.. you might be surprised and what you find.