Colonial Whoas

Oh friends, how in the world has it been since December 22 that I have blogged to you? Forgive me for my temporary absence. Christmas and New Years bring a whirlwind of activities, events, family, relaxing time. You know how that goes... Glad to be back! And boy do we need to catch up. Today I'm pressed to blog to you about Colonial Day. Have you an elementary school child, about 4th grade age who has perhaps survived this? So far in the Copeland house we have survived two Colonial Day experiences. Neither of those compares to my Bball Girl's preparation for her Colonial Day today.

Let me explain: Colonial Day is a 4th grade adventure where all the children get to come to school dressed up in Colonial times clothing and throughout the school day they get to experience activities, games and events that give them the hands-on Colonial times experience. Sounds absolutely thrilling, no?

As I said, Oldest and Soccer Chick both encountered this event and they manned-up, kept a stiff upper lip and basically, to be plain, sucked it up. Not so for my sweet Bball Girl. I must confess that it is 100% completely true that as you go along in parenthood you get more and more lax on things. Now that we are on the 3rd child, I put in about zero effort in preparing an outfit or a lunch satchel (A satchel? Seriously?). So I'll take credit that the poor girl didn't have a mama that prepared her properly.

So this morning we found ourselves searching through the closet. In the way back of my own closet I found a black, long skirt that I held on to for Soccer Chick. An item she swore she would never want. But to earn some mom-points here let me say I kept it because I knew eventually she would have a concert or something where this item was needed. And what do you know...today we put that bad boy to use.

There's my girl in a beautiful floor length skirt, safety-pinned no less than three times on her tiny little waist and a fluffy blouse that her darling big sister had for the occasion. I promise you she was looking seriously Colonial. For the shoes I told her to throw on her Chuck Taylor Converse and call it a day. Her father, much more grounded than I, said no. Put on the church shoes. Off this child went to the kitchen with her very Colonial-looking self. Shortly after breakfast she came to me with the biggest, most round tears I have ever seen. She was miserable! Have you met her? A skirt is a leap for her. Colonial Day clothing was torture. I gave her the speech about how some things in life we really don't want to do but we just have to do them, and do them with the best attitude we can. I added on there that no one likes Colonial Day (I already confessed The Hub was the more grounded one) and that everyone would be miserable in those clothes today. Did I think I was helping? But, the bottom line was this was going to be fine. I even let her pack a change of clothes that she probably won't be able to change into just before school is over. But, hey, the point is those clothes are in there. She knows her rescue plan isn't too far away.

I felt so bad for the girl this morning. It didn't help that her seriously-silly father trotted around the house in his pajamas doing his version of some Colonial dancing. To say this wasn't helping doesn't quite describe how Bball Girl was feeling. While the other two might have pouted a bit on their turn for such fun, this was actually painful for her. Isn't life just like that? There are just some things that we absolutely do not want to do. The thought of it brings us actual pain, might even make our skin crawl. Yet, there are those things that there is no way around, can't be avoided and we must tackle head on. What approach do we have? Do we let those huge tears roll? I don't see anything wrong with that. Sometimes you just gotta cry just a bit. But then, we force ourselves to get through it. And if you're in 4th grade, your mama forces you. Still...super powerful life lesson there.

As I pull up at the school to drop off the kids, the other two bounced out of the car with their normal kindergarten and 6th grade joy. You know I am lying about some 6th grade joy. There is no such thing. But poor Bball Girl looks directly at me and says "mom, can you just shoot me now?" Friends, a little drama never hurt anybody.