Happy Palm Sunday! I am just returning from a short weekend for my daughter’s Parents’ Weekend festivities at Texas A&M. An added bonus was that my son, who graduated from the same university, decided to drive in as well so we could all attend the Spring Football Game together. As expected, Saturday was filled with a flurry of 
activities. First, my daughter and I spent a couple of hours “sipping and shopping” at one of my girlfriends’ new boutiques in College Station, J&L Boutique (For those of you who have a trip to the Bryan/College Station area in the future, definitely stop by this locally-owned boutique filled with clothing, accessories and gifts). We then headed to the game at Kyle Field, where we met up with my son and several of his longtime friends from high school/college and even enjoyed a Von Miller spotting! From there, we all grabbed a bite to eat, then I had the pleasure of attending an Aggie Ring Dunk with my daughter for one of her closest friends. I loved how she carelessly threw her arm around my neck and introduced me to her circle of guy and girl friends, many of whom I had heard about but never met.
The weekend was quick, fun, exhausting and filled with a pleasant sense of pride, not just in my grown children, but also in their choices of those with whom they surround themselves.
You see, just as I wrote my blog a while back about the importance of OUR tribe as women, SHE friends, I underestimated the importance of our children’s tribe to not only them, but also to us.
As I listened my son’s childhood friends banter back and forth about some bet on who was right regarding certain NCAA football rules, I could hear in their spirited jests and pokes with each other the deep care they had for each other. Not to mention, there was nothing surface or pretentious about any of them. They were authentic and their feelings of true friendship for my son and each other was evident. It truly warmed my heart.
Then, as my precious daughter (who has always moved to the beat of her own 
beautiful drum) introduced me to her friends and social circle at college at the Ring Dunk, I was touched both by the pride she exhibited in having ME as her mom, and also by how much her friends were so much like her – nothing pretentious or surface – all very honest, natural and genuine. Oh, and I could tell how much fun they all had with each other and with my little girl. For the second time in one day, my heart was warmed immensely.
You see, our children are extensions of ourselves and we want the world to love them as much as we do. But even more importantly, we want them to have the wisdom to surround themselves with good, honest people who genuinely care about them. This weekend, my tribe grew to include the tribes of my children who love them almost as much as I do.
Note from the SHE files: Just as our children are an extension of ourselves, so are those that they include in their tribe