Growing Up

Savannah has been going through a "rough time" lately. Her mood swings are enough to make me want to lock her in her room till she's 20. She and I disagree mostly on how she wanted to dress. She wore sweatshirts every day to school for her entire 4th grade year. She'd argue that as long as she was changing the tank she wore under the sweatshirt, it was ok to wear the same thing over and over. Finally I'd had enough. I made her dress up in some cute clothes I had bought her (and which she refused to wear), and I took her picture. I wanted her to see how cute she could look if she gave it some effort. Her idea of appropriate clothing....

What I wish she would wear....

And it almost worked. That Sunday she wore a "new" dress (she has 6 hanging in her closet that she has never worn, because she likes to wear the exact same dress every single week). And she let me fix her hair....

And then the next day she was back in her sweatshirt. But then the weather started to get hot, and I told her she couldn't keep wearing a sweatshirt in 80 degree weather. So I took her shopping once again. We spent an hour with me picking out a cute shirt, showing it to her, and her saying, "No, I don't really like that". We finally found a few things she would try on, and we headed to the dressing room. I watched her try on a t-shirt, and as she looked at herself in the mirror, she gave a little tug on it to stretch it out in front so it wouldn't fit so tight. All of a sudden it hit me. I said, "Savannah, would you be more comfortable if you had a bra?". She let out a huge sigh of relief and said, "Yes! There are lots of girls at school who wear one now." I tried to not have a huge "my child is growing up" freak out right there in the dressing room, and instead just calmly said, "Well then, lets go back out and find you a bra". And after that, the shopping went much smoother.

And now Savannah no longer feels like she has to "cover up" with a sweatshirt every day, and she is actually wearing the cute new clothes we bought. Like this cute outfit that she wore for her Challenge presentation.

Now if only I could find a fix for her mood swings....