Her dad and I have been verbally prepping her for the early mornings, physically taxing and heat exhausting schedule she is about to begin. To tell you the truth, I think it's overwhelming her and she is scared. I would be too if I had spent the school last year getting up at 9:00 am, doing my work at home and setting my own pace. She is aware that high school starts at 8:30 and she'll have two extra curricular practice/performance schedules to juggle on top of 8 periods of learning. I'm tired already just thinking about it for her!
It's important to make memories with a teenager before it's too late. So, when the day came, we were off. Once we had lunch with Dad, and I got my ducks in a row, we said good bye to him and were off on our Mother Daughter Getaway adventure. It was going to be a fun vacation without Dad because he had to work on Monday and we like to do things our way. Boy howdy! The butting of heads began before we were out of our neighborhood.
We like to listen to music in our family. We also like to control the music that plays in the car. Afterall, the music sets the tone for the trip! But, I had to remind Emily that I am in charge of changing songs unless I give her the choice of song from the music we both listen to on our iPhones. It took a couple of tries, but she got the message that mom is the boss. And we were at peace again.
We were off on our bed and breakfast, fishing, tubing, shopping adventure! But we had to stop and get fishing gear. Our first stop was Cabela's. Our second lesson was asking for help. We found an employee in the fishing department and he hooked us up! Get it! Once everything was in our cart and he gave us simple directions for fishing and handed me the worms, we were walking to the checkouts and Emily commented on how efficient it is when we ask for help. I was so proud she got this right away! We had a female bonding moment over a snarky comment by my teen about how men don't ask for help followed by some laughter.
In the car, I dubbed her as the navigator, and I asked Emily to read and summarize the directions I printed from the website for the Kuebler Waldrip Haus. We talked through it together as the car idled in the Cabela's parking lot. I helped her abbreviate it her notes so it was easier to read. I love those teachable moments. I live for them!
We ran into some trouble when Hwy 46 was the only sign and we were looking for Loop 337, so we continued on past the stop sign and Emily typed Loop 337 into her phone app. She was stressed I kept going and didn't stop but when she was able to get me to the road we were looking for, she was fine. She had to think quickly and direct me to the right road from our current location. She did well under pressure and even though she didn't like it. I took that opportunity to praise her for her quick work and told her I react the same way under pressure. I told her she would get better at learning to deal with pressure, because there will be many more stressful moments in her life.
That led to a conversation about my over-reacting to things and then stressing her out. And we were sharing and talking and bonding some more.
We had a little further to go...
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