Stuff on Us

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Nature versus Nurture

So, Macey had a classic "girl moment" the other day. She had poked a hole in the knee of her last pair of jeans and so off we went to the mall. She tried on a dozen pairs of jeans and we finally landed on the perfect pair. So happy were we!! Home we went.

The next day she got dressed wearing the "perfect" jeans and came into my bathroom where I was getting ready for work. We did her hair and then she sat down on the floor to put on her socks.

"Ouch" she says.

"What's up?"

"My jeans are tight. You need to loosen them for me." As a child of the 21st century Macey is used to jeans with those expandable/retractable waistbands (too bad they don't make those for grownups!!) and she just assumed these pants would expand as well. So I check and tell her:"Sorry, Macey, these don't expand they just are what they are. Let me see what's going on."

She stands up, all is well. She sits down, the jeans are too tight. A failure on my part to remember to make her sit down and try the jeans that way. Oops.

"OK, Macey, go change. We'll take these back and get a different pair."
"NNNOOOO! I don't want to take these back" she cries.
"Well Macey, you can't wear pants that are too tight."

And then the punchline, when you wonder where in your parenting you went wrong:

"No! I can wear these. I just won't sit down at preschool."

AHHHHHAAAHHHHH!

In the end I did convince her to change and she wore the old holey jeans to school - it was western day so jeans were a must. And I did convince her to take the new jeans back-of course, they are in my car still 'cause we have not made it back to the mall, but that's neither here nor there.