If I haven’t mentioned if before, my daughter is something of a handful. She’s seven going on seventeen. Her moods will switch on a dime and though she is an extreme tom-boy, most of her angst seems to revolve around clothes.
You’d think that being a tom-boy would make things easy – shorts and sloppy t-shirt, right? Right…and wrong. It can’t just be any t-shirt. It has to be just the right t-shirt. She will spend a half an hour trying on different shirts, inspect herself in her bedroom mirror, reject and toss them back in her closet and try again. If I don’t catch her, an hour later the process will start again.
She’s already planning on what she will wear on the plane when we travel in July.
You also might think that wearing a uniform to school would make life easier. Not with my daughter. She creates problems out of nothing. Her uniform is simple: navy blue skirt, blue and white striped button shirt, white socks, black or blue shoes. (I said it was simple, not attractive)
Her first item of contention this year was her shoes. I spent hours this summer finding the right black school shoes. I decided against the Mary Jane style because sand gets inside from the top and the insides get ground to pieces as they play. I went with loafers. I heard no end of complaining about how the heel on the loafers was too high (it wasn’t) and how she couldn’t run in them (she could, I saw her do it)
She was so determined not to wear those shoes to school she started to sneak her tennis shoes in her school bag and change shoes on the bus. I never have known except that she kept arriving home in tennis shoes. No amount of fussing at her could curb this behavior. So I told her that if she did it and got in trouble for it, it was on her head.
She stopped. The fact that I also bought her a pair of sporty Mary Jane’s might have helped too.
Now she’s decided she doesn’t like her navy blue skirt. This morning she went so far as to hide it and claim she couldn’t find it. I knew she hid it because I put it out for her myself just moments before it disappeared. She finally “found it” crumpled up in a corner of her closet. That girl does keep me on my toes.
And also busy shopping for more acceptable forms of uniform wear. I’m currently trying to find a navy skort which she might like better. But if I do, what then? Will she start “losing” her shirts??
(And it makes me almost look forward to the upcoming school holiday!!)
Enjoy it now because when she’s a teen it will be ten times worse…
by Anny Cook April 22nd, 2008 at 8:01 pmBelieve me when I say I dread her teen years…
by Jenyfer Matthews April 23rd, 2008 at 7:48 amI get this from my eleven year old daughter all the time. It drives me crazy! She hides everything she doesn’t want or want to wear either and she would have a lot but she only wants to wear a few pieces. I love her, but she is a strange child, for instance, she is on the chunky side, but she loves to wear the skimpiest things she can find. Anyhoo, I know how you feel.
Deidre
by ddurance April 23rd, 2008 at 12:27 pmMy almost 7 year old and your 7 year old sound like they were separated at birth. My daughter is as tom boy as they come when she wants to be. Other times, she’s messing with her hair, debating what to wear. She has a thing for shoes already.
Her teenage years are going to be very interesting.
by Mechele Armstrong April 28th, 2008 at 4:16 pmInteresting – and sad – to hear I’m not alone!!
by Jenyfer Matthews April 29th, 2008 at 7:28 am