Revenge of my Mother

Oh brother.
I'm sensing a little tween-ness in my girl and most of it makes me laugh. She really is growing up very fast and as much as there is very little that I can do about it I don't have to like it.

She resembles me in so many ways that it makes my head spin. Take this morning for example. It's raining cats and dogs here, not going to stop any time soon either. We are under flood advisories, expecting some really severe thunder storms and basically it is just horrid. Before we headed out the door I made a quick swoop of everyone's closets and grabbed our raincoats. I plopped them down at the front door. Lily looked at hers, looked at me and said, "seriously Mum?". I told her that she only needed to wear it into the covered patio, then she could screw it up into the tightest, nastiest ball possible and squish it into her book bag and I gave her a ziploc bag to put it in. It isn't as if it's the nastiest raincoat known to man, I got to for her from LL Bean and it's really pretty and flowery. In fact, she chose it.

I got, "the face". Quickly followed by the attitude, which, luckily for her and me, isn't actually a full blown attitude yet as she hasn't figured that out yet. She humoured me by putting it over her head but refused to put her arms in it. She said that NO ONE wears rain coats to school in FOURTH grade and that she won't get wet as it is only 2 inches from the car to the covered patio. I however, countered with, how can I, with a clear conscience, let her get wet going to school when she owns a perfectly good raincoat?

She was ever so quiet and still in the car. As the drop off point approached I asked her to get ready. I told her to pick up her bag and put on her coat. As we got closer I could clearly see all her classmates and not one of them was wearing a raincoat as they bolted from their cars. There wasn't an umbrella to be seen either. I said, "Lily get your book bag, and your lunch box and take off that daft raincoat you will look like a total nerd".

"Oh thank you Mummy, thank you so much". And that was that. I got a big kiss and and a huge smile.

I clearly, very clearly remember being her age and hated to have to do anything that would bring attention to me. She is alot more outgoing than I ever dreamt of being and holds her own better than I ever could but even so it's all about fitting in.

I'm going to start walking a fine line. Sometimes I'll back down but I'm guessing there will be more times that I won't. She isn't a follower at all, in fact she really marches to her own beat and when she makes up her mind....heaven help me.

I know my Mother is somewhere up above looking down and cracking up laughing. Saying something like,  "It serves you right Dawn #&*^%@ Cope and if you think it is going to get any easier you are in for a rude awakening". She'll have that cheeky grin on her face that meant she wasn't at all serious but enjoying the moment to the fullest. Yepper, it's pay back time.
I don't mention my Mother very much but I hope she realises that she did a great job raising us and that we are all so thankful for the lessons she taught us and if I can impart just a quarter of that onto my girls I will be doing an OK job.