Indian Princesses

My daughter and husband went off to an Indian Princesses camp out today.   I suppose I should call it by its updated, more politically correct name, Y Guides, but I remember it as Indian Princesses from when I was a child.

They're doing a camp out at a local park with a large lake.   The location was selected primarily because one of the families has a boat (my best friend's family) and they were able to combine going out on the boat, swimming and inner-tubing with the additional things they'll be doing tonight and tomorrow as a tribe.

I'm not privy to some of it as this is a special time with fathers and their daughters, but most of it I hear about.   I didn't do Indian Princesses when I was a child.   It certainly didn't bother me and I never felt left out.  I did a year of Girl Scouts but that wasn't for me either.  I never felt like I missed anything in that respect as a child.   My father and I had lots of fun in our own ways.

It must be a special time, those three years together as a tribe of fathers and daughters, for some.   My best friend from childhood got married many years after we'd grown up and had moved to different cities.  But Jenny will always be my first best friend though.  The childhood memories we had together are some of my most memorable from growing up.

My parents and I went to Charleston to attend Jenny's wedding.   The day of the wedding John, Jenny's father, took her out on the beach and they went back in time to their Indian Princesses days together to remember and close that chapter as daughter and father as she moved on to be a wife and later mother.

I don't know what they did that day, but I've always thought it was a special thing, remembering, and celebrating their father/daughter relationship on Jenny's wedding day.

Some day I hope both of my children will get married.   Maybe my husband and daughter will remember their times together in Y Guides as he sends her off to get married.

The Big Boy Update:  Aunt Margaret watched my son tonight while I went to his school's back to school social.   When I got home something happened that's never happened before: the dog wanted to be with Margaret, up against her on the couch, instead of being with me.   I said something like, "I leave for a few hours and Matisse likes you better" to which my son replied, "it's because you're lousy, mom."  Ouch.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter couldn't get to sleep last night.   She was a little anxious in their bedroom even though her brother was there too.   I suggested she make up a story in her head while she was lying there and then she could type it up today.   I'm not sure if that's what was happening when I got in from running mid-morning, but she was going through pages of braille paper and was very occupied.   If that works—coming up with stories to occupy her mind—it will help.   Dhruti said part of what's happening is she is afraid of silence, because that means she has to think, and she's not ready to accept the things she needs to think about, namely addressing the blindness so she can accept it.