There are no coincidences . . .

February 8, 2011 - Match Day

"Think BIG. There are unseen forces ready to support your dreams." ~Cheryl Richardson, Author

I found this "Insight of the Day" quote in my inbox on the day I was scheduled to meet my LITTLE. I gasped and my jaw dropped when I saw "Think BIG" with the word BIG in all caps--that is all that had been on my mind for days while I was waiting for our meeting day to come. So to see it that morning jump out of my email like that, was reassurance/confirmation/validation/whatever you want to call it that my decision to become a BIG was the right one and most importantly, that I'm getting matched with the right LITTLE.

I'll skip right to the part when we got to her house and not spend a lot of time on the office visit at Big Brothers Big Sisters with my match support specialist beforehand. We knocked on the door and her Mom answered. My Little was a bundle of energy, kind of bouncing around on her tipee-toes, and was all smiles and giggles. After our initial introductions, she ran to her room "Ooh, I have to get something!" and returned with a magazine held tight to her chest. She sat on her Mom's lap, bouncing and fidgety the whole time, and said "this is my favorite magazine." She turned it around to show a cover of Justin Bieber pictures. My LITTLE has Bieber-fever!!

Our match support specialist went over the formalities and left us. Mom said it would be okay if my Little and I went out that evening and said there was a toy store nearby that she loves. We went to the toy store and looked at everything, played with all of the demos, and got comfortable being with each other. She was adorable...everything she saw she LOVED and said she HAD to have. She's so smart and even counted back the correct change to me when we were playing with the toy cash register and I bought 2 of the 3 little pigs from her for $8.

After the toy store we got in the car and rattled off some places we could go eat trying to decide what we wanted. She thought Subway would be best, so we went and got a sandwich. She talked non-stop telling me all kinds of stuff from how her previous BIG used to have a bag of makeup in her purse, that they won a snowman making contest and made a snow dog instead of a snow man, to how her best friend and she met in kindergarten, that she was a flower girl in a wedding, and how her brother loves Subway.

She showed me her room when we got back to her house; she had built a blanket fort (she called it a castle confirming her princess status) and it was being protected by a big poster of Justin Bieber at the entrance. All in all I think it was a successful and fun first meeting and I left after making 2 more dates.

See you next Tuesday . . .