It’s official – I can no longer refer to my youngest as Babycub. It seems that overnight she’s become a young woman – complete with a chest, an eye for boys, dabbling with make up, clothes, worrying about her hair, and all that goes with those girly rites of passage.

She doesn’t see it, but she is my clone. There are so many odd little personality traits and quirks that I see that so resemble my own. My older daughter is a blend of the hub and me – this little one is pure “me” inside a much younger body.

It’s an odd feeling to see. I am constantly telling myself “let her make her own mistakes, we all have to do that” when I see her repeating the silly girl things that I’ve done myself. Advice is one thing – living my life over again through her is simply wrong. She has to spread her wings and fly.

There are some things that are different between us though. I grew up in a home with a schizophrenic mother. I never knew which way was up. I never knew when she would fly off the handle and start to physically or mentally abuse me. That sort of thing can destroy a kid’s confidence; it teaches you to be wary of the world and to walk on eggshells around people. Babycub has only known love – she has the confidence to take on the world that I have always lacked.

This confidence will take her far. Sure, she has quirky bits of “I am not pretty enough, athletic enough, etc.”, but her sense of  who she is and what she can do is strong. She will be thirteen next month, and already she is researching colleges as far away as England and Italy. She wants to fly and I know she will. Her dreams are huge, but she knows she will succeed. I’ll miss this child when she takes wing, but I’ll be proud to call her mine – no matter where she finds herself.

Until then I will savor every moment with her, or at least I will try to – those ugly teen years are ahead of us both.

For the next few years she will have to gain more confidence about her own appearance. I hate that girls tend to worry so much about this part of their lives – but it is a fact of life. That’s her weakness; she just doesn’t see herself the way the rest of us do.

The other day we were looking at old pics from my high school years. She giggled over the clothing, the hair styles, and everything else that screamed out my generation. Eventually she paused and said “Oh mom, I would kill to look like you did when you were in high school. You were so beautiful.”

I pretended to be horrified when she put that in past tense and she scrambled to backtrack the part about “used to”. It made us both laugh, but I told her that she IS beautiful and that she simply has to gain the confidence to understand what beauty truly is. It’s not just how one looks – it is what is inside.

Inside this young girl who will now be referred to as Little Miss – is a truly beautiful person that makes me proud.

Peace