Like Mother Like Daughter

I don't often write about Crafty here, mostly because she does not give me very much ammunition, I mean, material to work with. In the past the kid was all kinds of nuttiness but now she has mellowed out and mostly flies under the radar. The only time I get anything from her is when she gets over-excited or a little stressed out...and today she was both.

In a lot of ways Crafty is a lot like me. She likes to craft, write and colour. She is witty and has a quick tongue which is both good and bad and she likes to be goofy when she thinks no one is watching. Another similarity is that neither one of us handles stress particularly well.

To combat some of the stress and anxiety in Crafty's life we try to plan ahead as much as possible. We lay out clothes for the week on Sunday evening so she doesn't have to think about what she is going to wear. She always has an emergency bag of toys and books packed in case we decide to drive to the city on a whim and everything in our life ends up on the calendar. So today should have been a piece of cake right?

Not so much.

A month ago Crafty brought home a note saying that she would be going to the city today to sing at a choral festival. The note specified that she was to wear black pants with a white top, bring a few things to keep her busy on the hour and a half drive and pack a lunch. Easy. We wrote it down on the calendar, including all the details, and started planning for it. We made sure she had a new white shirt and that her pants from last year fit. We changed the batteries in her MP3 player and found a new book at the thrift store. Still, with all our careful planning this morning was still chaos.

The waistband on her pants was still damp from being washed last night, her socks felt weird, the sleeves on her new shirt were too long, her hair...oh, her hair...it was bumpy, static-y, sticking up, too flat, had the wrong hairband, a broken hair clip, a too-small elastic, a too-big elastic, her backpack had too much stuff in it, there was only one boot in the bin, her mitts were crunchy, her jacket puffy, the boys moved her book, the boys hid her MP3 player...

In and around my regular get ready for school chaos I ran around helping Crafty with her dilemmas. She stayed relatively calm and focused through the mayhem and somehow we manage to get everyone in the van and dropped at school on time. Mischief hopped out of the van with his usual, "See ya later mom" and a quick kiss on the cheek and normally Crafty follows suit but this morning she just sat there. I waited a couple of seconds then asked her if she was all right. She sighed and said,

"Yeah, I think I'm nervous."

"Nervous about what?

"Well nervous and excited. Mostly nervous and just a little excited...no, wait...I'm probably a little more excited than nervous. Yep, I am excited and hardly nervous at all. Thanks, Mom, love you!"

With a kiss on my cheek she was off. I watched her disappear into the school and marvelled at the funny little person she is...then I pulled out of the parking lot and headed for Timmie's. This morning definitely called for an Extra-Large Double Double.