The Ups and Downs of Being a Mom

I already mentioned how I feel about the trials of children and peer pressure, but this just happened this morning so it's fresh in my mind.

Nicki loves cottage cheese.  She'd eat a whole container in one sitting if I'd allow it.  This morning, I was making her lunch and I decided to let her have cottage cheese as a special treat.  As I was putting it in a container, she blurted out, "No, Mom!  I'd rather have yogurt!"  I was surprised by her enthusiasm because she doesn't really like yogurt very much, but I said, "Okay," and put one in her lunch box.  Nicki got teary eyed and said, "Everyone makes fun of me when I eat cottage cheese.  They all say that it's gross."  She asked if she could eat cottage cheese for breakfast since she can't eat it at school.  Of course, I let her.  She's going to be a closet cottage cheese eater for a while.  I tried to tell her that it doesn't matter what other kids say about her lunch, but I know that to her, it REALLY matters right now.  I'm not sure how to help her, except to love her and let her figure things out on her own.  Parenting is hard!

On the bright side, Alison and I have been having "thinking dates" for a few weeks.  We came up with the idea together one night when she said, "Do you ever think to yourself  'I wonder what Ali's doing right now?'  because sometimes I wonder that about you."  We decided to set a time during the next day when we would both think about each other.  We called it a thinking date.  When she came home from school, we talked about our date: what we were both actually doing compared to what we thought the other person was doing.  It was so fun that we've had a few more thinking dates.  Nicki has tried to join us once or twice, but she's just learning to tell time, so she keeps missing them.  We'll have to set thinking dates for lunch time or recess for her.