Updates by the score… remember “mum you’re the only person who tells me I’m beautiful”?

Remember how sad I was when my beautiful daughter told me that I’m the only person who ever tells her she’s beautiful and how it broke my heart and I felt I’d failed because she didn’t feel or see herself as beautiful? Well there has been a development, or a few in the four months since I blogged about that…

Somehow my daughter has blossomed, not in that she’s changed physically but an internal light has switched on at last and she has become aware of her beauty and feminism. The way she dresses her whole approach to life, she is still climbing mountains and trees and capsizing herself in kayaks in freezing cold rivers and biking through mountain ranges in thick fog but she has developed a real sophistication in her approach to her femininity. She doesn’t need a reminder from me to visit the hair dresser or go for a manicure or facial anymore, she does these things and she has a bright, cheeky, flirtatiousness about her that wasn’t there before.

I think she has just come to see herself as others see her and is aware of her womanhood, maybe she was just in need of more time than most to fully embrace the transition from girl to woman. She does love being a girl. Even her eating habits have changed and she’s more into fine dining than KFC and I just love the confidence which she oozes now.

And… people other than myself frequently tell her she is beautiful and I do think (and she agrees) it’s because she’s become much softer and more approachable. Phew! Another worry to strike off the list of parental stresses.