Wednesday, September 29, 2010

student becomes the teacher

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Yesterday I had a teaching moment with Ellie in which... I am pretty sure I was the one who learned the lesson.
I realize that I'm far from all the perfect mothers out there and still have so much to learn and yesterday was proof of the many area's I need to work on.
-Morning's are always a blur at our house. Waking up kids, making and serving breakfast, doing hair, making sure teeth get brushed, getting them dressed, finding shoes, packing up all four out the door and to the school by about 8:00. So as I was in a crazy hurry because I had to change a surprise poopy blowout, I tossed Ellie her clothes and shoes to put on. Enter Whining.
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"I don't like this shirt" "These shoes are big and heavy" "I look silly, like I'm on a farm"
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We went back and forth pleading our cases until she got sassy and threw her shoe on the ground in protest and sat on the couch with her arms folded. STINKER!!
I had Enough!!! I was at my limit.
I said "That's it! I'm done... you take care of getting yourself ready. You have 14 minutes and then you are to be in the car." And I walked away.
-This is how I expected the next 14 minutes to go:
Ellie (a little shocked and realizing that it is hard to find a matching outfit, find clips, do her own hair, and gather the missing shoe from under the couch) cries but finally gives up and just gets ready my way.
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-This is how the 14 minutes actually went:
Ellie, with a Victory smile on her face, proceeds to her closet and comes out with an outfit only the mind of Lady Gaga could think up. She gets dressed in 1 minute flat, puts on an equally hideous jacket, runs a brush through one side of her hair and hops in the van. 1o minutes to spare. Done and Done.

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My mouth drops. I don't even know what to do. I can't go back on my word, I can't make her come back in and put on the clothes I had picked out. She was to get herself ready. It was her....Punishment??
-She learned that she could easily pick out her own clothes and it was fun.
I learned to think out my decisions that are spun out of frustration before they are said out loud and to make sure my 7 going on 17 fashionista is involved more in the outfit choosing process.
Oye! (Stop laughing Mom)
So to school she went!
My guess is that her teacher might have thought I was out of town or super sick and she was dressed by her daddy. (heehehe, love you Scottie) And I wish more than anything I would have taken a picture of her that morning, all bright and smiley full of sass and a whole lot of self confidence!

4 comments:

Rachel Garcia said...

You have to pick your battles Jamie!! and at least she was dressed! Huh Sara? Teacher's have seen it all and she probably understood... Have her start laying her clothes out at night!

meg baker said...

She is a girl after my own heart:)

Rohatinsky Family said...

I LOVVVEEE that story! How cute is she and how good of you to just let her do her thing. I hope I can be like that.

The Duckworth Family said...

lol, your morning sounds like what mine used to be! Funny how now, without the pressure of having to go somewhere we are all ready by 8 am and it's not crazy either....how does that happen? Maybe I don't worry about the house being clean yet? Either way, I had si milar issues with Maliyah and just thought I would share what we do now to comprimise. I do laundry on Mondays so when Laundry is done and put away (although we really should do this on Tuiesdays since sometimes it doesn't get put away early enough) but we spend maybe 30-45 minutes together picking out her outfits for the week. She gets to pick 6 things and we help find the matching items together. Then we put the matching hair accessories and discuss what shoes she will wear with each outfit. Sometimes that had to change in the winter depending on weather, but for the most part it worked out well. It's seriously been amazing! The idea is to replace an argument every day (wasting that precious crazy morni9ng time) with one 45 minutes session. Those sessions used to be exhausting, but we have both learned how to work with eachother and now we rarely argue about it. I guess we are used to it now. She certainly doesn't wear what I would have her wear, but she looks decent, matches and works with the weather. It's also great because when she is really naughty I can hold that over her head....this week I got to pick all her clothes and amazingly when MOnday came and I was in her room picking out her weeks worth of clothes she didn't say a thing. We just use one of those shoe holder hanging things and roll up her outfits and put one in each hole...seriously saves me sooo omuch in the morning! I'm contemplating doing it for my boys too now that they are so independent and can dress themselves. Anyway good luck and whatever you do it will work out because you are an amazing mommy!