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This is a picture of Allie Beth (circa. Mardi Gras 2008). I look at this picture and can't help but smile. The saying "have feet, will travel" comes to mind. One foot in front of the other; it's such a simple concept but such a hard adult lesson to retain and persistently DO.

SO, the topic tonight is none other than my dear sweet "gregarious" daughter Allie Beth.

This past September she turned four and yet if feels like yesterday that I brought her home from the hospital.

She is my heart, my soul, my pride and joy. I love that she is Scarlett O'Hara in the making. Anyone who has ever met Allie Beth will say she is both dramatic, outgoing, verbal "to a T" and a lot more.


I will admit that Allie Beth was a unplanned hope. We had just had a miscarriage when we found out WEEKS later that this magnificent life lay within me. A precious fluttering beating heart no more than my own "little bean". As I write this I think back to those days of both fear and shear unadulterated joy, the kind that you know once passed life will NEVER be the same. Life was not the same once Allie Beth came into our lives.

Her coming into our lives forced me to put aside "myself" and it was the BEST thing that has ever happened to me. I had so many real fears like; would I be a good mother (knowing that my own biological mother and father had NOT been), would I be able to love enough (I felt I hadn't been loved enough growing up), would I be patient enough (I am not a patient person by nature), would I BE "enough". I have to admit that I still struggle with that fear of "will I be enough" and right after that thought is the knowledge that follows me today that some days I will be and some days I won't be.

Some days I struggle with the perfect image of "mother" I have in my head (June Cleaver). This alternate reality has me in my pearls, cooking dinner, with my hair perfect, makeup one while the children are quietly playing at the dinner table and my husband on his way home from work. I am consoled that even June Cleaver was not June Cleaver but rather an invention of Hollywood, an icon of what motherhood personified in the 1950's! In the same breath I make myself laugh by saying thank GOD I'm not June Cleaver....

I will write this because I feel like it needs to be said. Life IS hard but if we hold on to those joys that life gives us then life can be beautiful. I read an article in Oprah magazine this past month by a women who talked about how growing up she never felt beautiful. That she always compared herself to what society deemed beautiful UNTIL.. she had her son. The day the delivery nurse said to her "he is beautiful and looks just like his mother" was the day her entire outlook changed. Now she has two sons and KNOWS her beauty and worth through that simple revelation given to her by a simple statement. I thought that was one of the most beautiful, open articles I had red in some time and it struck home with myself. The person I beat up every day, the person I speak to so harshly, the person I call ugly, not acceptable is none other than myself but you know what? I am "enough" I am Allie Beth's mother and though I may be no June Cleaver I am Aimee Neu. Looking at our scrapbooks, seeing my daughter smile/laugh/sing/dance and be open with the world is a reflection that I AM.... and will be as long as I keep striving, trying and being.