Time to...ugh....Get Ready...

Oh how hard life can be as a six year old little girl. Who are we kidding? Oh how hard life can be for a mom of a six year old girl. Painful at times....

Lucy, you are growing rapidly...up two sizes in less than a year! Everything from summer (and even this fall!) is too tight and are floods. Therefore, I can barely keep up with you and your clothes. I feel like I am constantly shopping. I feel bad for you, as you aren't really sure what you even want to wear these days, what you like or don't like, what feels good or not, and you are getting more and more self-conscious about yourself. You suddenly want everything baggy and "stylish" and "sparkly."

"I don't want to look cute, mom," you will say to me. Apparently "cute" is defined by a nice pair of jeans and a solid colored long sleeve t-shirt. "Boring," you say. Huh.

With this, comes LOTS of fun from 7:40 - 8:00 a.m. This has truly become the new "witching hour" for me. To be honest, these days I would rather pour salt water on a paper cut between my toes than head upstairs with you in the morning to "get ready." Most days, you end up in tears and I am doing deep breathing exercises in frustration over you refusing to wear what we set out (and agreed upon) the night before, or your unhappiness with your hair (too poofy, not poofy enough, a ponytail, no a headband, blah blah....), OR your decision to wear weather-inappropriate pants or shirts.

Today, for example, it was -12 degrees with the wind chill factored in. You. Wanted to wear grey exercise capri pants and an olive colored Old Navy sweatshirt (hand me down from a male neighbor at a garage sale).
Neat.

So I breathe and you breathe and somehow we compromise. You got your leggings and your hair in some odd ponytail thing. I got a normal sweatshirt and a longer t-shirt that made the leggings look, um...a little more appropriate.

We got to school with (literally) two minutes to spare.

If this is what you are like at six years old...what in the WORLD will we be dealing with when you are thirteen?

As we go through all of this, I am once again reminded that I am a MOM. A real mom who is already power struggling on a typical issue with her daughter. Except that it's not just any mom and daughter.

It's me as mom. I was just fighting with my mom about trying to sneak out the door to high school with her sweater on. (Side note: WHY I ever wanted to wear my own mother's clothes is beyond me. I dressed like I was 45 years old as a senior in high school. Gantos, anyone? County Seat? No sense....)

And it's Lucy as the daughter. But wait - she was just born! She used to let me dress her like a doll every day! Oh those clothes when she was 18 months old...is there anything CUTER on a little girl than those clothes labelled 18 months - 2T????

And WHY, once your child graduates to a size 7, do all the girl's clothes at every store suddenly become BUTT ugly, unflattering and FULL of strange designs and accessories? But I digress....

Now it's the two of us having a typical mother/daughter argument over a typical issue and I am saying things like, "You have two minutes to get dressed and get downstairs." or the old classic, "Mrs. Battle will call and tell me I am not a good mom if I let you go to school dressed in summertime clothes!"

And by "old classic," I mean, "totally absurd comment."

In the end, we always make sure and leave each other with a smile at 8:15 a.m. She still gives me a hug and a kiss in the first grade line. She'll still yell, "Love you mom! Love you Tommy! See you after!"
And really...it's pretty much all that matters.

As long as she doesn't tell people I am her mother while wearing that absurd shirt with glitter falling off of it onto the classroom floor. Ugh....
:)