Build-A-Relationship

Over the 2008 Thanksgiving holiday, when visiting family in West Virginia, I was able to frequent a QVC auction.  Anyone who knows me knows how crazy I am about auctions and yard sales.  I hit warp speed when I come across a deal for something I need.  That's when one can genuinely claim frugalness. ;)  eBay is my homepage, need I say more???  Of course, I came away from that particular auction with some great deals: to Sugar's intense dismay. ;) Once again, my ears rang with his, "Melissa, quit saving me money!"  Little did we both realize that one particular purchase that night would redefine my relationship with our eldest daughter, Miss Gracie.

As most of my family and close friends hear me say of my enigmatic middle child, we butt heads on a regular basis.  In part, I know it to be a consequence of her age and my own shortcomings.  Am of the mind, however, that the majority of the fault lies in the contrary aspects of our personalities.  I'm loquacious, she's taciturn.  She's cautious, while I tend to "jump right in".  And so on...  Given this, I frequently sometimes find it difficult to make a connection between us.  Feel like I'm trying to fit a square peg in a round hole at times.  The good news for both of us, though, is that I'm taking my parenting advice straight from the top.  And it was that "advice", in the form of mother's intuition, that threw my hand in the air at that auction to bid on a do-it-yourself "Build-A-Bear" kit.

With the holidays and accompanying visitors, the kit sat in my office for almost two months.  I give my little girl much credit here, for she exercised the patience of a saint with me and my sometimes overwrought schedule.  I clung fast, every time I passed that bear (am still haunted with the whispered, "Please build me?"), to the promise in Ecclesiastes 3:1.  And oh my, was the wait worth every last bit of guilt and self-incrimination that shadowed me those two months.  To say that Miss Gracie was excited when we finally sat down with the project on January 9th is akin to saying South Carolina summers are warm!  A gross understatement!  My delight, in her delight, is almost indescribable (a rarity for me!) and incomparable.  This joy set the precedent for the next three days as we created a bear she craftily christened, "Bear Bear". ;)

I'll let the pictures below tell "the rest of the story" to quote one of my all-time favorite broadcasters, Paul Harvey. 

 

I pray this beautiful memory remains "as fresh as homemade bread straight-from-the-oven" in the two hearts that will forever be intertwined as mother & daughter.