Channeling My Inner Stuart Smalley

Today I join several other blog mamas to girls over at Momma Made It Look Easy for a post about the importance of instilling confidence in our daughters.

Today I am also 41.

Am I always confident? Heck no. I have many down days. Days when I doubt myself…days when I don’t like myself. I jokingly call them bad hair days.

I feel like I have grown a lot in the past year and even though I am no longer a young girl, I still work on my confidence daily. I have the same insecurities and self-doubt as everyone else. I have the same worries and the same self-conscious mirror that I use to judge myself.

I am a work in progress. I try to no longer please everyone, to be the nice girl who cannot say no or who worries too much about what other people think…I am learning to be my own best champion. I am blessed with an amazing family and supportive husband and good friends. I am a lucky woman.

If I had a bit of wisdom to share with you today, it would be to dream big, love large, laugh loudly, say yes, say no, and believe in yourself.

As Stuart Smalley says, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it…people like me.”

No One Puts Baby In The Corner


Don’t mess with the dress. Or in this case, the sassy sequined disco hat


Miss A starts kindergarten in August. Don’t get me started. There WILL be tears. Even though I swear by the end of the summer I’ll be worn thin from each “MOMMY she pinched me!” and “MOMMY I’m bored!” I will be a definite hodge podge of emotions the first day of school as all the milestones of the past 5 years rush before my eyes like a movie sequence.

Where does the time go?

I have no doubt that Miss A will adjust without a hiccup to school but there is one worrisome thing that keeps fidgeting with my mama brain.

Miss A has trouble pronouncing certain letters, like R and L, and although she is 5 going on 15 her speech sometimes makes her sound younger than she is. I brought this up with her pediatrician at her 4-year annual checkup last year and he was not concerned as the letters and sounds she has trouble enunciating is a fairly common issue for kids her age. I’m sure I’ll bring it up again this year. She has made some improvements, though, and her teachers at daycare worked with her on practicing particularly tough phrases.

Earlier this year she told me that some kids in her class had made fun of the way she talked. I wrote down what she said because it was so classic Miss A.

“Miss A,” I began carefully. “What did you say to them?”

She paused for a second and said:

“Mommy I told them I DON’T talk funny! That’s just the way I was made…do you LIKE it?

Last week at the pool I watched her put her hands on her hips and shout at two older boys: “Watch out boys. You are GOING DOWN!” in the middle of a water fight.

At this point I have no worries about her confidence level. In fact, I kind of wish I had some of it.

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