Cinderella

My mind is logjammed, lately; trying to unstick a single (coherent) thought is next to impossible.
Been thinking about my daughter. You know how awesome she is, right? Right. She is. Everyone thinks so, it isn't just me.

You ever wonder if your kid has a calling of some sort? Because I wonder that sometimes. When she became interested in going to church I was very happy--I'm a semi-regular churchgoer and I was glad that she was curious. She loves going to church. She loves being involved with church. She asked her teachers at school if it was okay to pray in class and/or talk about God--some teachers said yes and some said no--and I thought, "When I was her age I would've been too embarrassed to do that".
And my girl? She's the one who sits with different kids every day at lunch, especially if she notices someone sitting alone. No cliques or BFFs for her, no sirree. Where does she get that? Not from me. I'm WAY less of a good person than she is. I don't know how she's not totally fucked up with me as a mother, quite frankly.

She doesn't pout for more than a few minutes and never holds a grudge--again, totally my opposite. If I yell at her or get on to her for something, 10 minutes later all is forgotten and forgiven. How does she do that??

At home she's a Godsend--literally. I don't know how we'd get out the door every morning if not for her. She packs her brother's backpack, and half the time she feeds him breakfast while I get everything else ready.
She feeds him dinner MORE than half the time...I get it ready and she does the feeding while I work.
She never complains about it. When I say, "Do you mind doing this?" she always answers, "ABSOLUTELY NOT!"
When she goes outside to check the mail, or when she's getting ready to run next door to see if Grandma has any chocolate milk, she ALWAYS says, "Be right back, Ma!"
(I've brainwashed her into the belief that I need to know where she is every single minute)

When I was so sick a couple-three weeks ago, she was my nurse. She even did the laundry without being asked. She offered (several times) to walk up to the 7-11 to get me a drink/food/aspirin.

Her brother is much too heavy for her to lift, but one morning (while sick) I got up to find that she'd dragged him into a sitting position against the head of his bed and fed him breakfast because she "knew I needed my sleep to get well & didn't want to wake me up".
Wow.
Yeah.
She's a better mom than I am. Hell with that, she's a better person than I am.

So then I have to wonder (and this is really the whole point I was trying to reach)...
Is she suffering under the burden of her responsibilities?
Have I piled too, too much upon those thin little shoulders?
Am I stealing her childhood?
Am I selfishly sucking the...the kidness...out of her simply because it makes my life easier?

I don't know. I worry about that a lot.
And it shames me to think that it may be so.

I can tell you one thing for certain, though: God suuuure knew what He was doing when He gave me the kids I've got.