Understanding the Rush

Calling yourself on making a mistake the very moment you are making the mistake can be a disconcerting thing. This morning, KC and I got into it yet again as we tried to make our way out into the world. Forever dragging her heels, her lackadaisical attitude in the a.m. drives me crazy.

I've got somewhere to be. Let's go, let's go, let's go, seems to be my cry each morning as I try to hustle us out the door. Instead my daughter stands stock still like a deer captured in headlights, shoes barely on and untied, fiddling with her half open bookbag, as she greets me with a blank stare, unable to fathom a reason to rush.

Sometimes I think that if I could clamp my hands over my ears and scream - all without upsetting the neighbors - I'd surely stand and yell for a thousand years or more, until the entire weight of my frustrations were spent. Comical or just crazy?

But this morning, little big mouth decided that sass was the way to go. A big mistake when Mom's already in a mood, but at the tender age of 8, my girl is willing to take her chances from time to time. But it was so not the way to go this morning, when option A, B, or C would have been the far better choice. However like her mother, the minor child has a stubborn streak a mile long and the inability to realize that sometimes keeping one's mouth shut is far more advantageous to personal welfare.

So she's grounded. And I'm grounded. And now we can both suffer the night together in anything but peaceful bliss and harmony. Ah well, an early bedtime is bound to make someone happy.