Beautiful

G bear is a beauty.  She loves skirts and shoes, make up, and dolls.  Oh she will get dirty and wrestle with the boys but she loves being a princess.  Yesterday I was in the bathroom putting on some makeup.  For the most part I leave this out of my routine but I was going to enrichment and in an effort to avoid hearing the, "Wow you look tired." comments I was putting on some mascara.  G bear came in and asked me to put some makeup on her.  I told her she didn't need any makeup.  She was beautiful little girl, perfect just the way she is.  She said, "But I want you to make me darker.  Darker is beautiful.  Mom you have darker beautiful hair."  It was a shocker of a moment for me, full of joy and sadness.  I think most children see their mother as their first example of what is beautiful and I'm glad to know that I live up to a standard that my daughter feels that about me.  I am saddened though in the fact that love has her feeling slightly unsatisfied with her own looks.  As the Mexican daughter of a white mother I have always felt a little uncomfortable.  I recognize a sort of hidden desire in myself to mesh more closely with my mother's family, the ones who predominately raised me.  I also felt a little uncomfortable in the dating realm.  There was definitely a lot of blond to blond pairing up at my college and there were times when I wondered if people saw my coloring as a liability.  In the end the opposite ended up being true.  My hair caught the eye of my husband, and my winning attitude kept it, and so brown married blond, and little miss blond hair, blue eyes was born.  I have two blue eyed, blond children, I have one brown eyed, brown haired child.  They are all adorable.  I'm a very lucky mom.  I often feel blessed to be the mother of such photogenic children.  I hope they can always be happy with themselves.  I realize that isn't always possible.  Woman, even baby woman sometimes find issues with themselves.  It is my job as their mother though to always let them know how awesome they are.