She's a brave one.

Today, my girl made me proud. She's been working on this school project about her family tree for a month now, and today was the big day. Today she packed it all up and took it into Lethbridge to show off at the Heritage Fair held at the Galt Museum. She has been feeling nervous about it for the past few days. I've been working with her trying to do what I can to help her remember her stuff. On the way into Lethbridge she asked me if I had ever did anything like this when I was her age. I told her that I hadn't and left it at that. It was pouring rain when we got to the museum. I dropped her off at the door with her display board so she could get it inside with out getting too wet. Then I went and parked at the far end of the parking lot and walked with the other kids and the rest of the display through the rain. Once we got her all set up, the nerves kicked in. She started to crying and just wanted to hold onto me. I tried to calm her down. Reassured her that she knew this stuff. Told her to be confident. Take a few deep breaths, I'm right here and I wont leave you. They gathered all the kids and told them what to expect and then sent them back to there displays to await the judges interviews. A total of three judges would come and ask questions about her project. I stood back and watched from a little distance as the first judge came to talk to her. He was great at putting her at ease. She started smiling, and became animated as she answered the questions. When he was done I asked her how that went and she said "Great! He asked really good questions." And she was set.

When the day was done, we packed up and headed back out in the SNOW. The rain had turned to snow and it wasn't nice. When we got in the van we talked about what the judges had written on there evaluations and how she could improve for another time. One of the things mentioned was to have more confidence. She got this kinda sad face. It was something we had talked about before and it seemed that she felt like she had failed. I quickly told her that I thought she had done great and that the reason that I had never done anything like this when I was her age was because I was too scared. But since then I have learned to be able to do those kinds of things. I told her how proud I was of her and that she shouldn't let the things the judges said make her feel bad, they were meant to help her get better for the next time. She then said "Mom, does it make you feel embarrassed that I can do something that you couldn't do when you were my age?" What a cheeky little monkey....