Best at Middle

My eldest daughter graduated middle school today. I would like to brag for a moment.

She won four different awards, including “Best Overall Student.” She created the class banner, an artistic memento that each class gets to hang permanently in the school – and by “created” I mean both she had the winning concept pitch AND she actually drew & painted the masterpiece. She was in the honor society for academics. She got to deliver a speech, and was the best public speaker on the stage the whole night, and that’s including the adults running the ceremony.

I would also, now that I’m done bragging, like to be humble and honest for a moment: I did none of that.

Parents like to take credit for their children’s accomplishments, and certainly plenty of people congratulated me. But I never did any of her work, never made her do any of her work. I didn’t hound her to do extracurriculars. I didn’t force her to study. Here is what I did do, and I’ll take credit for it: I listened. Every time she was excited about something, I listened eagerly. Every extracurricular she did, I attended all the meetings, games, plays, meets, etc. I was always interested, always impressed. I let her know it was good.

And apparently I did one other thing, taken from the thank-you letter she wrote and delivered to me during the ceremony: “Thank you for always making sure I had everything I needed, even when I needed a lot.”

I love her with all my heart, and I am so very, very proud.