February 18 – “The wrong shoes”

We had our little overnight guest on Thursday.  Mom and Dad found a new place for a creative date, so I picked her up from softball practice and she made a night of it.  Yesterday morning she got all ready for school with no problems … until she went to put her shoes on.  Uh oh.  Major crisis.  It seems Mom had packed the wrong shoes.  Now don’t ask me what the right shoes would have been.  In fact, don’t ask me what exactly made these the wrong shoes.  But there was absolutely no question that wrong they were.  And it was, of course, all Mommy’s fault, for she had done the deed.  She was the official clothes packer.  Oh, we have seen several incidents whereby Daddy had mis-packed in some shape, form or fashion, but that seemed so much easier to deal with.  After all, he IS just Daddy.  And what do Daddies know about fashion anyway?  This, however, was simply unacceptable.  The culprit was Mommy.  MOMMY.  How could that happen? 

Now understand, the shoes were the only ones available (well, we COULD have been ultimate super grandparents and run over to her house and let her pick out the correct shoes, but don’t tell her that).  She could see that her options were severely limited.  She wasn’t interested in wearing her softball cleats.  But she had to let someone know that she was more than a little displeased.  So she vented.  And ranted.  And raged.  (Actually it wasn’t that bad, but it makes for a much better story).  She did, however, stand right in front of Chris while she verbally accosted good ol’ absent Mommy.  Even wagged a finger a time or two.  Chris did her best to keep a straight face.  Me?  Not so much.  It was one of the funniest things I have seen in a long time. 

Finally Chris could hold back no longer.  During one of Cailyn’s pauses for breath, Chris managed to ask, “Why are you mad at me?”

At that challenge to her behavior Cailyn made a clinic-worthy psychological breakthrough, one that would have made any psychiatrist worth his salt nod and say, Um-hm.  She blurted out, “It’s … It’s … It’s because you’re like Mommy.”  Whoa.  Complement?  Deep-seeded psychological breakthrough?  OK, all you psych students out there.  Run that one through your “Why do I act like I do” meter.  You make the call.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 says, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”

Father, thank you for right shoes and wrong shoes and Mommies who care enough to pack at all.  Amen.