Things have been fairly quiet for a couple of months. My daughter has been working very hard and she has been excelling. She now has mostly good days and she is really starting to feel good about the person she is. With Spring right on our doorstep, she is starting to train for Track. She is very excited for her first meet. She is going to run sprints and hurdles. She wants to make it to the state championships. I believe she is going to do it.
A few weeks ago my younger daughter and I spent the morning of my birthday with my older daughter and her big sister's. They made me a cake and I brought doughnuts and hot chocolate. Teenage girls can be so funny. They danced to music, told us funny stories about different things they have done to each other and sang happy birthday to me. We had a lot of fun together. It was a great birthday. A couple of weeks after my birthday the school was selling whoopie pies at a fishing derby on the lake they are close to. Their chef was making close to 100 whoopie pies for the derby and my daughter asked if I would also bake some for them to sell. I made about 50 whoopie pies and brought them over to the school the night before the fishing derby. Staff and students all thanked me for helping them out. They ended up selling all of the whoopie pies and the coach and I talked about selling stuff at sporting events. I told him I would be more than happy to help out any way I could.
Next, is our weekend visit and it was wonderful. We went to pick her and one of her big sister's up on Friday morning. It was such an exciting feeling. We got there about 10:00 am. I met with her counselor for a chat and then we met up with my daughter. We had a short conference to go over what we might expect over the weekend. We discussed how we might get on each other's nerves and how we should handle it. As anxious and excited as I was for this weekend, I was also scared. We already had one visit that did not end well and I didn't want that to happen again. Her counselor made sure we all knew if one of us was feeling stressed and wanted time to ourselves it was OK and to respect each other's privacy. I am glad we had that discussion. I know it helped me to relax and I believe it helped my daughter's. We were headed to my Mom's place in NH. She was away for a few days and said we could stay the weekend. It was perfect.
We left her school somewhere around 11:00 and headed for the grocery store. A few weeks earlier my daughter sent me a list of the things she wanted us to cook together. She loves to cook and both of my daughter's are great cooks. We went through the grocery store and picked up all the items for our smorgasbord. We were all very excited to get to NH and get settled. We arrived late afternoon and got unpacked. We started cooking within the hour. We made Chicken Parmesan and a chocolate cake from scratch. It was so much fun. We ate dinner and sat at the table for more than an hour telling stories about the younger years. My older daughter was laughing so much that her cheeks hurt. She would make these funny faces while trying to massage her cheeks and it made us all laugh even more. We finally quieted down and decided to clean up after dinner. We headed to the living room and my daughter's played Mario Kart for a while and then settled into a TV program. We headed to bed about midnight and I think we all slept very well.
The next morning my younger daughter and I were the first to arise. My older daughter loves Sour Cream Coffee Cake, so my younger daughter and I set out to make it. After breakfast and showers we decided to go off for the day. I showed my daughter's one of the houses we lived in when they were little and then we headed over to the Mall of NH. We spent a good part of the day there looking at clothes and people watching. We had a really good day. My daughter did get quiet with her thoughts on the way home. I know she was trying to sort through and compare her life now with the lives of other kids her age. When we got home she and her big sister went for a run so they could talk while I cooked dinner. The girls' got back just as dinner was ready to be served and we all sat down to eat and talk about the days events. We had good food and good conversation. We all cleaned up the dinner dishes and headed off to the living room to watch some TV.
At one point I went into the kitchen to get something to drink. My daughter came in and we sat down to talk. She wanted me to know that her bad attitude had changed but she still planned on drinking when she graduated the program. She told me she liked how alcohol made her feel as well as the taste of it. I asked her if there was something else in her life that she could do to get the same good feeling. She said nothing could make her feel as good as alcohol could. She didn't want to even consider anything other than drinking. She is worried she will not be able to enjoy life unless she can drink and get that feeling. It is a real concern of hers and I understand. I am hoping with time, counseling and maturity she will see things differently. It is all work in progress and I feel she is in the right place to get that help. We really had a good conversation and although we both feel differently about things, we both understand and respect each other.
As the night wore on she and I ended up being the only ones up watching TV. We watched Behind the Music with Nelle and we both thought it was a good segment. When the show was over we decided to say goodnight. We hugged and said I love you to each other. She went into the bathroom to clean up and brush her teeth. When she came out we said goodnight and hugged again. She went into her room and I headed into the bathroom to get cleaned up. When I came out of the bathroom she was sitting on the couch. She said Hi and before I could say or do anything, she was crying. I knelt down and just hugged her. I sat down beside her and she told me all of her fears. She was afraid of what the future had in store for her. She talked about her desire to continue drinking and I told her how scared i was for her if she continued down that path. I told her how what she did affected other people. It wasn't just about what she wanted, it was also about how it would affect the people she loved. She talked about how she still felt embarrassed at how she treated her younger sister and I in the past. I reminded her that we forgave her long ago and it was time for her to forgive herself. It was part of our past and not our future. I told her how proud I was of her accomplishments over the last year and we talked about the upcoming Track season. We talked for an hour or more and we both felt really good when we finally said goodnight for the evening.
The next morning the kids played Mario Kart for a while and then we all started to clean and get our stuff together for the trip home. I was a little nervous that we might get sad and have a hard time saying goodbye after such a good weekend together, but it all went very well. We headed for home about 1:00 pm and stopped to have a good dinner when we got back into town. We then drove back to school and we helped bring all their stuff back into the house. We stayed and talked for 15 or 20 minutes and then we hugged and said our goodbyes. No tears or sadness in our goodbyes this time. We told her that we would talk to her soon and to have a good week. We went out to the car and headed home. It was a great weekend and I am looking forward to more meaningful memories with my children.
