Every morning C and I have a routine for getting up. Actually to be more accurate, C has a routine and I get dragged along for the ride. It goes something like this:

Me: “It’s 7:30, time to wake up!”

C: “Push it out, mom! Push it out!”

Then she proceeds to use her feet to propel me towards the edge of our family bed. I groan as her miniature sized toes poke indentations into my back. I also marvel at the strength of her pint sized will to do so. Even though she may be small, she doesn’t let her size or age stop her. That’s how she likes to do things, with purpose and passion. Ever since she was a baby we noticed she knows what she wants and she goes for it. When she has an objective, she formulates a plan to achieve it.

Which is why I was not completely surprised when she said this the other day as we were getting into the car, “I’m not sitting down until you say we can go to M’s house.”

Are you serious? But I could tell from the determined look in her big brown eyes that she was 100% serious.

We had been invited to her classmate’s house for a play date, but there was one glitch in the plan that would prevent us from going. E had a dentist appointment scheduled that same day.

Grrr! I really didn’t want to give in to her demands, but not for the reason you may think. It wasn’t so much about picking battles with my kid or having to rearrange my schedule to meet her wishes. The real truth I wasn’t all gung-ho about the play date was this: I didn’t want to meet new people.

In that moment, I realized how much my little girl pushes me to do things I don’t want to do. Things that make me uncomfortable like getting out of bed in the morning. Things an introverted and cautious person would rather not do. Things like pushing me to make new friends.

Would you believe I have met more people through my alter ego in the past few months than I have in all my years as a stay at home mom? For some reason (probably due to the X chromosome she didn’t get from me), she likes to talk and socialize. She has two really close girlfriends at preschool and several other female and male friends, too. E, on the other hand, never got invited to any play dates when he was in preschool and when he did receive an invitation to a classmate’s birthday party, he chose not to go. And I understood his decision perfectly. C, however, is a whole other mystery to me. 😉

But because I love my daughter and the fact that she is not like me in many ways, I changed E’s dentist appointment and said yes to the play date. I said yes to meeting three new moms and their seven sons. I kid you not. It was C and seven boys that day because the other girl who was supposed to go got sick. But my little fun-loving and brave daughter had no problems fitting right in and even said, “That was fun!” afterwards. And I admit it was. Once I pushed myself out of my little bubble of safety and isolation, I had a good time. I enjoyed talking to the other moms and learning about their families. I even talked about myself a little.

Now when I pick up C from preschool, I actually say hi to some of the other moms instead of keeping my eyes pasted to the ground. I’m learning to take baby steps to put myself out there and it feels good. And it’s all thanks to a little voice that keeps telling me to “Push it out, mom!” 🙂

I picked Wham’s song, “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” for this post because C wakes me up every day and it’s also fun and upbeat, just like her.

In what ways have you (or someone else) pushed yourself out of your comfort zone?