Katdish.net

The new furniture and bedding has been ordered.

With the arrival of an accent pillow, we’ve been able to choose a new paint color.

This room that started out as a nursery filled with ladybugs, fireflies, bumblebees and butterflies has had subtle transformations over the past 9 years.

From toddler princess…

to American Girl princess…

About a year ago, my soon-to-be 9 year old daughter announced that pink was no longer her favorite color. Her room was way too girly. I’ve resisted the change for as long as I could, but over the summer, all remnants of this pretty in pink room will be gone. We’ve found new homes for the bed and other pieces of furniture that once resided in this very girly little girl’s room.

In the negotiation process, my daughter agreed to certain terms. We’ve been at odds for the past several months because her room is often a disaster area. She suffers from what many of us suffer from: too much stuff and not enough space to put it all. She finally agreed to part with a sizable collection of My Little Ponies, Littlest Pet Shop Pets, Barbies and all the various and sundry paraphernalia that accompanies said collections. This includes a large fold-out Barbie castle with a horse drawn carriage, furniture, clothes, etc. (LOTS and LOTS of etcetera. Two large boxes of etcetera, actually.)

We’ve spent the past couple of weeks going through and sorting toys to be given away. We’ve redressed all the naked Barbies and returned them to their original personas of Barbie Princesses, separated the ponies from the pet shop crowd, and threw in some DVDs to go with the different collections.  We wanted her old toys to seem as new as possible so that the little girls receiving them might enjoy them as much as she has.

She’s been a real trooper. Of the sizable collection of Barbies, she only asked to keep two dolls (one given to her by her cousins and one to keep the other one company I suppose) and a small Barbie car. As I was boxing up the rest of the stuff, I asked her repeatedly if she was sure she was ready to part with her stuff. She assured me she was.

There were a few items she pulled out of the box. I reasoned that she was taking a last stroll down memory lane and I was fine with that. The first item was a blow-up swimming pool complete with slide and diving board, which I found in her bathroom filled with water. This was quickly emptied, disassembled and put back into the box. I’m as nostalgic as the next person, but I’m not a big fan of indoor water toys.

The other item was a tiny, plastic recreated scene from the movie Barbie Fairytopia:

Since she had spent many hours playing with this particular toy, I asked her if she wanted to keep it. “I don’t care”, she said. “Are you sure? Because I really don’t mind if you want to hang on to it”, I said.

“No, Mom. I don’t care. I don’t really want to talk about my room stuff right now.”

Fair enough. Into to the box it went with everything else. That was Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning, I loaded up the boxes into the back of the jeep and headed to church. One friend’s daughter would be the recipient of the ponies and pets, another friend’s granddaughters would be getting the giant box of Barbie stuff. All was well.

Until…

We got home from a late lunch after church. My daughter, tired and cranky, went straight to her room. Moments later she emerged asking where her flower thingy was. I reminded her of the conversation we had about whether or not she wanted to keep it. With tears in her eyes, she told me she did. “But I need that back. I didn’t mean to give that away.”

Uh oh.

In separate conversations, her father and I both explained that we had already given her things away and it wouldn’t be right to take it back. She said how sorry she was, how that toy reminded her of when she was little. She went on to say she didn’t know how much it meant to her until she didn’t have it anymore.

After a couple of hours she was still upset. I conceded to a point. I told her I would call Mr. Randy. If he hadn’t given the box to the girls, I would ask if I could stop by and get one item out of the box. But if the girls had already opened the box, its contents belonged to them.

I think I was almost as relieved as she was that the box was still sitting in the back of Randy’s truck unopened. I don’t know if it was the best example to set as a parent. The best thing to do was to probably just tell her you can’t give something away and then ask for it back.

But I know what it’s like to have something and lose it, never understanding how important it is to you until it’s too late. This time it wasn’t too late.

She’ll be 10 years old in 2 short months, and I’m happy she has something special to remind her of when she was little. I’m even happier that she wants to hang on to being a little girl a bit longer.

It all goes by much too fast.

By “social media guru” standards, I suppose I don’t have many followers on the twitter – 954 at last count. But that’s certainly more than I could ever really keep up with. But the great thing about tweetdeck is that you can create a “favorites” column to keep up with your favorite tweeters. Bridget Chumbley certainly falls into that category. Always kind, always encouraging. And did I mention she’s a very good writer? Also? She quoted me – which has nothing to do with the fact that she’s guest posting. (It’s just nice to hear someone else quote me besides my kids, because they use my words against me.)

Here’s Bridget with some thoughts on Regret:

I’ve found myself spending a lot of time recently dwelling on regrets. Some regrets are for things I’ve said or done that caused hurt and pain, some revolve around situations that were completely out of my control, while others resulted from a lack of comprehension, simply because I was young and immature…

Growing up, I used to get really angry and frustrated with my mom. She’s struggled with health issues and chronic pain for as long as I can remember, but as a child I tended to be selfish and focused on how it would affect me…not how hard it was on her (physically as well as emotionally). There were times we’d be driving to Disneyland (or somewhere else I REALLY wanted to go), and half-way there we’d have to turn around and go home, because she’d be sick or hurting.

1Corinthians 13:11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

I’m not sure how you dealt with disappointment when you were young, but I got pretty upset. I’d sit in the car with steam coming out my ears, insensitive to the fact my mom was obviously feeling guilty enough without my ‘tantrum’ in the backseat. Now that I’m older (and I hope wiser), I understand what she was dealing with, and what a constant struggle it was for her to plan those family outings, never knowing what each day would have in store for her body.

Another regret is of a time I was being babysat while my parents were at work. The babysitter decided we’d take a ride on her bike up to our local store. This was NOT something we were supposed to do while she watched me, and to top it off she put me on the handlebars! Sadly, she hit the curb with the front tire, and subsequently I hit the gravel driveway (face-first). I ended up in the emergency room, with much of my face left behind on the road.

I don’t remember most of what happened (being unconscious can do this), but I’ve been told that when I was able to talk, I blamed my babysitter for the ‘accident’. I was upset and scared, and said a lot of things I didn’t mean!

Most of us have had moments like this, we’re hurt or afraid and we speak before thinking…then when we’ve come to our senses, we apologize and hopefully we’re forgiven and we move on. Well, not long after this ‘incident’, before I realized how stupid and childish I was being, my babysitter was killed in a tragic school bus accident. When I read her name off the list of deceased students in the newspaper, I remember being shocked and full of regret…why didn’t I just say I was sorry?

Many years later, during the summer of my freshman year of high school, I spent a few weeks with some relatives in Connecticut. It was a great trip (my first one without parents along), but about 2 weeks into the trip, I received news that my dear friend Brian (we’d had a crush on each other for years) had been killed in a horrible car accident, along with his dad.

Needless to say I was devastated. Not only didn’t I get a chance to say good bye to Brian, I also missed the funeral by the time they were able to reach me. I went to the cemetery as soon as I got back home, but it wasn’t the same. I still have a deep regret for things left unsaid and unresolved…

Now I’m an adult (at least according to my age), and I’ve had plenty of lessons taught to me (some harder than others)… life is short, take nothing for granted…take opportunities as they arise, because there might not be others…

Ephesians 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Why then is it still so hard to do what we know to be right? There are situations I need to put in the past… words left unspoken… people I need to forgive (starting with myself)… but it’s a constant struggle! I know better than to procrastinate, yet here I sit with a heavy heart and a stubborn head!

“Forgiving others is a gift we give ourselves” ~ katdish

It’s never too late to show compassion, and Jesus Christ gave us the ultimate example of forgiveness! Should we continue living with regrets and heartache, or are we ready to give ourselves that priceless gift and finally let go?

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To read more from Bridget Chumbley, visit her at One Word at a Time and follow her on the twitter at @bridgetchumbley.