It's Not About the Shirt

People like to tell me who my kids are like, usually in reference to other family members. Interestingly, it's very rarely me that they compare them to, but I think that's because the traits they're talking about tend to be superficial. Dig a little deeper; these babies are exactly like me.

On Monday morning, Elizabeth got dressed for school in one of her current favorite outfits - a fuschia patterned playdress and heather gray leggings. It was nearly time to leave for the bus stop when she sat up from what she was doing, a panicked look on her face, and said "I don't want to wear this, I want my purple shirt with the ruffles!"

I feel the need to preface this by saying that Elizabeth takes forever to get dressed and tends to screw around while doing so.

"Honey, it's almost time to go. You can wear the purple shirt tomorrow."
*lip quiver* "But I waaaaant my shirt!"
"Elizabeth, unless you have a really good reason for changing you clothes, please just keep that outfit on. Do you have a good reason?"
"I WANT MY SHIRT!"
"That's not a good reason, I'm sorry. And now you're screaming at me, so I really can't let you have it anyway."

Cue gigantic tantrum that lasted so long, I had to drive her to the bus stop when it was over, negating the whole "we are leaving in a few minutes and there's no time" thing which made me not let her change her clothes in the first place. And the whole time, she couldn't tell me why she wanted that damn shirt. "I JUST WAAAAANT IT" was the most I could get out of her, even though the look on her face told me that it was something more and she just couldn't tell me for whatever reason.

Flashback to approximately 1985. It was a Saturday, I was six years old, and I was supposed to spend the night at my grandparents' house. We'd spent the day together, if I recall correctly, driving around looking at houses - and when we got back to my parents' house, I was expected to grab my overnight bag and get right back in the car for the 45 minute drive to my grandparents' house.

Cue gigantic incoherent tantrum.

I remember that tantrum because 1) I didn't actually throw THAT many enormous tantrums, 2) I felt bad the whole time I was doing it because I was afraid I was hurting my grandparents' feelings (I was), and 3) I just couldn't explain why I didn't want to leave the house again. I KNEW why I didn't - I'd just been in the car all day, I wanted to play with my toys, and any other number of very simple, reasonable explanations - but I couldn't verbalize it.

That's how I imagine Monday morning felt for Elizabeth, minus the guilt about making people feel bad. But now, on the parental side of things, I was in the unfortunate position of not being able to give into her (admittedly small) request, because she'd launched into a tantrum when I didn't immediately comply.

Parenting is hard, man.

So there's one of many stories about why my kid, who everyone likes to compare to everyone but me, is like me. More importantly though, she's like HER. She's not Dan's clone, she's not the second coming of my brother, she's not my grandmother revisited, she's not even me at heart. She may be all of those things in isolated moments in time, but more often than not, she's none of them.

Elizabeth is like Elizabeth, and that's all that really matters.

Happy Halloween from My Little Monsters

Elizabeth is a turtle, and Jacob is Thomas the Tank Engine. Told you he was totally ensnared by the Thomas marketing machine.

Now to steal all the peanut butter cups.