She may be like me, but she's her own person

Miss H is so much like me in so many ways that sometimes it's almost unreal. In many ways, it is a pretty good thing. I mean, she's overly-confident, headstrong, determined, vivacious, tenacious, incredibly intelligent and courageous without limits. A bit of a know-it-all, too. In many ways, it's a pretty bad thing, too. I mean, she's overly-confident, headstrong, determined, vivacious, tenacious, incredibly intelligent and courageous without limits. Oh, yeah. And a bit of a know-it-all.

Although she has a lot of my characteristics and traits, she’s not me. Not by a long shot. She is completely her own person. Thank, God. She is all ready a far better person than I could ever hope to be.

That being said, because I see so much of myself in her, I sometimes find myself trying to impose my own desires on her. For instance, my entire life – okay, like the first 10 years of my life – I wanted very badly to do ballet. I begged, I pleaded, I dreamed of it. But to no avail. I was enrolled over and over into gymnastics even though I could barely muster a somersault, let alone a cartwheel.

And thus I have tried getting my little lady to dance. She’s too young for ballet here, but not for tap. So she’s taken tap classes. She likes tap class. It’s fun. She is always smiles and giggles and happily shows me new moves.

But she doesn’t want to do tap. Just gymnastics. She loves gymnastics. Like, as much as I loathed gymnastics, she loves it.

So, though it seems ridiculous to admit, one of the most difficult things I’ve done as her mom is un-enroll her from dance class. I mean, I wanted it so badly when I was her age. And she is so much like me. So how can she not?

Because she is her own person.

Kind of like how she loves bows and dresses (like me!), and was crazy excited to pick out and order pettiskirts, but she also loves pants and t-shirts that don’t match and crazy hair (so not me!).

Miss H is her own little, wonderful person. She is figuring herself out, and will continue to do so for a long, long time. She certainly does not need me imposing my own desires on her. If she likes gymnastics, we’ll do gymnastics. And I will try really, really, really hard to bite my tongue when she is happily dancing around the living room and I badly want to say, “Don’t you want to take dance class?”

Because maybe one day she will. But I want it to be her choice.