Friday, September 15, 2006

The Struggle


It's amazing to me how much I'm reliving some of my childhood with my daughter. She has many of the same traits as I do. She loves to stay up late and sleep in late. She's not a morning person and if you try and joke with her when she wakes up, watch out. She loves to collect rocks and I used to carry around purses full of rocks. Heck, I even went and excavated rocks out of the front yard! Mom and Dad bought me a rock-polishing machine one year for Christmas, too. She loves to draw and do crafty things and so did I.

This morning, though, we had a struggle with clothes. While I love all the pretty dresses and the cute lace-lined shirts or pants or whatever, my daughter wants nothing to do with them. And that brings back memories of when I used to go shopping with my mom. Our tastes were radically different. If she bought me something, she expected me to wear it. Half the time I didn't because I just didn't like the clothes.

When my daughter and I went school shopping, I made sure to double check with her that she liked what I was buying her so we wouldn't have the struggle in the morning that my mom and I used to have.

This morning we tried on two pairs of pants. My daughter's crestfallen expression, bowed head, and near tears about wearing either of those pairs of pants about undid me. But boy, did it bring back memories. I even said some of the things that my mom used to say to me. "I bought this so you would wear it." and "You said you liked these at the store!"

In the end, I told her to go pick out her clothes herself. What did she put on? A pair of jeans with a hole in the knee and flip flops.

Hey, I tried. :-)

9 comments:

  1. LOL--the great joy of the UK is almost all schools have a uniform and while we might hate it at the time, as a parent you have to love it.

    Bless her :)

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  2. Ahh, I shall say that I agree!

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  3. oh Gawd it starts. My words of advice, it gets worse, sorry my 13 year old girl is making me crazy!

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  4. My daughter is three and we've already started the struggle with clothes. Such a difference from my boys - my oldest at that age could've cared less (but he's in jr high now so he cares VERY MUCH!). My youngest boy hardly ever wants me to even dress him. I think he'd be perfectly happy to run around in a diaper and that's it...

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  5. Anonymous5:05 PM

    Oh, don't tell me these things. I don't want to go there! :) Maybe when she's older she'll just buy her own clothes. No struggle.

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  6. Anonymous8:41 PM

    Good solution! *g*

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  7. Anonymous8:47 PM

    I don't have kids, but you reminded me of my struggle with my mom. I swear I didn't get to choose my own style until college. And she's currently banned from buying me any clothing. We've agreed on the gift-card thing ;)

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  8. You post made me laugh. I go through the round with my kids. And I know my mom went through the same with me. I'd rather my daughter wore grubby jeans and flip flops but Diva needs her stylish clothes.

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  9. LOL, my younger niece sounds like your daughter. She has VERY particular tastes in clothes.

    I never did win the struggle with my mum - she dressed me like a little English girl for the first few years (tweed cardigans/kilts) even though we're in Canada.

    But for high school, uniforms do rock! I wore one and after the first couple of weeks, I LOVED it - no agonizing about what to wear - just take a clean shirt/socks/underwear, throw on the kilt then choose between sweater/blazer and I was off!

    My first couple of weeks at uni were quite a surprise - I actually had to THINK in the morning!

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