Working for the weekend...

My babies.I love them so much. I have come to find myself living for Saturdays. It's all I think about. School just makes life so busy, so last-minute, so overwhelming. It's like I spend the whole week in disappointment of myself for one thing or another.
Kayla's hair wasn't brushed before I sent her off.
I ate coffee for breakfast. Again.
I didn't get enough sleep because I decided to stay up and spend a little time with the man watching t.v. while folding clothes.
Dishes in the sink from the night before because I decided NOT to do all the things for once and instead just go to bed.
Then Saturday arrives like a free coffee on my birthday: unexpected and so very appreciated. No one wakes up before 8 am on Saturday. Jammies all day. Cartoon marathons. Juby in all her pants-less splendor {yes, I dress her every day, but she's finally been consistently going to the bathroom all by herself, which means most of the time she drops her drawers in the bathroom and forgets to put them back on. Hence, the common scene around here of Jubes, curls all akimbo, t-shirt and tiny buns flitting around like a humminbird}. Saturday is particularly my fave because its the one full day when I have my sweet Kayla Joy's presence all to myself. She's less like a little girl and more like a young lady every day, and so content to drift from one self-directed activity to the next. Kayla is so easy-going, and so much like me. That part scares me so much. I love everything about her, but I have to catch myself any time I judge her subconsciously when she shows me the parts of her that are uniquely her. Why is that so hard for me, to just accept my kids as they evolve into their own identities? Before I was a mom, I used to think that it was just pure selfishness for a parent to live vicariously through their kids. How could someone not have the conscience to recognize how damaging that is to another person's story? And Then...I had my own little people. It's not always a willful decision to micromanage every step they take. It seems more subtle, like I convince myself that I'm just giving them guidance, but every once in a while I sense that creepy monster of control lashing out at them under the guise of "trying to make sure she grows up to be [fill in the blank of whatever I'm trying to project on them in the moment]".
I tend to obsess over interviews and conversations with people who go on to the spotlight of life. I've taken note of how SO many creative, successful people credit their parents as a HUGE
motivator/support/inspiration for their ability to achieve great things. I think I've obsessed too much, because I live in my head in this constant state of "testing" myself. I put myself on trial every day, and for some reason I never live up to any mysterious standard that I've set up. At the end of the day, I just want for my girls to grow up knowing Jesus, loving their world, themselves, and Justin and I. I pray and hope they will be SO much more courageous than I ever was. Right or wrong, I feel like that tends to be the underlying motivation in many aspects of parenting for me personally: that my kids will conquer the putrid fear that crippled me. To be continued...