Sarah loves being fancy. When we went to the Santa Brunch I helped her get extra-fancy by giving her an extra-fancy hairdo and she absolutely loved it! We used hot rollers (old school!) to make her as fluffy as possible.
As soon as she saw her hairdo she just KNEW that she had to have this exact same hair and outfit for her classroom holiday party later in the week. Once I agreed to reproduce the grand hairdo she was in happy happy la la land.
Me ... well ... let's just say that I was happy that she was happy. It's not that I have any issue with her fancy hair. I love it that she loves fancy hair and that she's a fancy girl. My problem was that from 1:00 on Sunday until the wee hours of Thursday morning my every conversation with Sarah went something like this:
Sarah: Momma. What time do I need to wake you up to do my fancy hair on Thursday?
Me: I don't think we need any extra time. I think we'll be golden if we get the rollers plugged in while I'm in the shower. We'll roll your hair while I dry mine and it will be all ready by the time I'm done getting ready.
Sarah: Okay. I want my fancy hair and my dress and my sparkly shoes. What about my tights? Should I put the ones I wore to see Santa in the laundry or should I just keep them out and wear them one more time?
(and before I can talk)
Sarah: Momma? Are you sure I shouldn't wake you up a little bit early?
On a side note, Sarah wakes up extra super deluxe early every single day. She used to come to our room as soon as she woke up and I would be so sad to have to wake up so early. She doesn't do that any more. Now she just entertains herself until the rest of the world wakes up. I know it's crazy, but it works for us ... and I get a little bit more sleep (which makes me a nicer mommy).
Back to the regularly scheduled program.......
It all boils down to this: Sarah wanted to be fancy. She NEEDED to be fancy. She obsessed about her fanciness for four days and shared her every fancy thought with me.
It was cute, for sure. Also, she told me that she was telling everyone at school about how fancy she was going to be on party day. She had apparently selected her lunchroom seat-mates in advance based on their playground discussions and similar anticipated scales of fanciness. She even told her teacher that she would not recognize her when she came to class because of how fancy she was going to be.
So, on the BIG DAY we heated the rollers, curled her hair, sprayed on some of mommy's hairspray, put on the fancy clothes and waited for the bus.
Then ... with about two minutes to spare ... she slapped on a big winter hat and her hood and tried to go to the bus stop!!!!!!! I cringed. I looked at her and, before I could even say anything I think she knew that something was wrong.
I said, "Sarah! A hat will smash your curls!" (without as much tact as the situation called for) and she quickly ripped off her hood and hat. Her hair was truly squished. She was devastated! It was a bad scene. She burst into tears and my heart broke.
Think of the planning and dreaming that was involved in getting ready for this day. I didn't know what to do. I had two other kids to get ready for school. One more lunch to pack. Nate was still in his jammies and we had only twenty-five minutes until the last kid had to be walking into school. But ... I told Sarah to run upstairs and plug those curlers back in.
I told her that we'd do the whole thing again as best as we could and than I'd just drive her to school. This was going to have to be a day of Gormans being late to school.
So, that's what we did. We re-curled her hair. I packed Nate the worst lunch ever and, somehow, managed to get everyone to school.
As a bonus, her teacher later told me that when Sarah walked into the classroom she looked at Sarah and said, "I'm sorry, Sweetie, but I think you have the wrong classroom. This is room 140. Are you sure you are in the right place?" Sarah laughed and told her who she was, "It's ME! Sarah!"
It was a big day for my fancy girl and we managed to make it work.
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