A Thousand Miles From The Place I Was Born

Here is what I have learned about my daughter. If I am tired, she will be awake and quite focused on interacting with me. If I am hungry, she will say she’s not, and if I’m in the middle of preparing dinner, she will suddenly be famished. If I am in a hurry, she will drag her feet and go as slow as humanly possible. Thus is the nature of kids. But I have also learned that she mostly contradicts me simply because I NEED something from her. Whether or not this is a conscious move is irrelevant. The rule apparently is “Whatever Mom needs from you, DO THE EXACT OPPOSITE UNTIL HER HEAD EXPLODES!”

We’ve been struggling with mornings at our house ever since I let her stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve. She hasn’t been ready for bed at the usual time, and I suspect she’s been staying awake long after I turn out her lights and close her door. As a result, the morning comes too soon. Although she’s never grumpy in the morning (I know!! Whose kid is this anyway!?!?) she has been a wee bit sluggish and it takes a lot of nagging effort from me to get her moving so we’re not late.

One of the biggest time-sucks of our morning is her stinking private-school uniform. This thing is like a torture device. The tie must be placed on the blouse BEFORE the jumper, or the tie will not lie correctly and will be bunchy. Then once the jumper is on, the sailor collar of the blouse must be pulled out and adjusted. Then the sweater goes on, and the sailor collar is once again pulled out and adjusted. It’s a pain in the butt, and Lauren insists on doing it herself. It takes her 20 minutes to get dressed, and I still have to adjust everything once she’s done. So needless to say, by the time she gets dressed, I am nearly out of patience. Correction: I am TOTALLY out of patience.

So this morning, when I was trying to get Lauren in her coat and out the door, she kept begging me to let her bring her American Girl doll that she had dressed in a matching private-school uniform. They are allowed to bring these sorts of things to school on “Share Day”, so that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that we were already 5 minutes late. If I allowed her to go back to her bedroom for even one thing, it would take her 5 more minutes because she would undoubtedly get sidetracked by something shiny. I refused to let her get the doll, but the whining, ohmyholyhell the whining. So finally I gave in and told her, “You have until the count of ten to get your doll and get back here!” Boy howdy, you should have seen her run! She made it back around the time I said “Eight” and I noticed that she had left the doll’s stand attached to her.

I should interject at this point and tell you that I also have a really bad habit when it comes to Lauren. I rarely listen to her. Like, I hear her voice droning on in the background, but I often have no idea — and no interest — in what she’s saying. That sounds horrible, but it’s a common thing, right? I’m not the worst parent on earth, I’m sure. Anyway, when she came back with the doll, she was speaking… I knew there was speaking… but I wasn’t listening. It wasn’t until I reached out and began to rip the doll from the stand (did I mention we were IN A HURRY?) that I caught what she was saying.

“…bring the stand so she can stand on my desk… OORRR, not.”

Crap.

So I did what I wish my Mom would have done more often when I was a kid. I apologized to her. I apologized for being in a hurry and rushing her, for not listening to her, and for being rude and grabbing the doll out of her hand. Then I carefully put the stand back on and helped her manipulate the doll into her backpack.

We were later than I would have liked, but she still made it to school before the first bell. And if we hadn’t, it still would have been okay. Because all that matters is that Lauren knows that SHE matters.