Kaylee On...

Usually Kaylee chats me up all the way to school and back, and I occasionally get a word in edgewise, but in general it's her. Today on the way to school she got me going. We were talking about what we were going to do about the weekend that's all booked up, and she piped up with "I want to go, but I don't really want to fly there. Why can't we drive? Besides, airplanes are more dangerous than cars anyway." Oh no she di-nt! MY daughter just spouted out that "airplanes are dangerous" line usually reserved for people who don't actually know anything about it? Oh, the horror! So "we" talked about that all the way to school. Serves her right. ;)

I was realistic though-I did point out that flying and driving both are only as safe first as the people doing the flying/driving, and secondly as safe as the people around them doing the flying/driving. At least with flying, you can eliminate a whole lot of #2, not having a steady stream of people just a few feet away from you traveling at deadly rates of speed needing only a sneeze, a break in attention, a sleepy blink or a radio channel change to drift over into disaster--but you do have to be much more conscientious of #1...and that her Dad and I are both very aware of that.

How many parents have thought the words "When you leave this house, you can putz around on the ground in a car, in traffic, in construction, with no view, in a seatbelt, for an entire day or two to get somewhere I can get to in just a few hours if you want to, but while you live in THIS house, you follow OUR rules, and WE'RE flying airplanes!" And how many kids would be annoyed at getting to most of their vacations via airplane? Kaylee's classmates have always thought it was pretty cool. I ought to refuse to let her go for awhile via any method but car and see how long it takes for one of us to arrive and begin having fun hours and hours before she does and much less exhausted before she caves. ;) Seriously. Six and a half hour drive to Missouri or Tennessee, which means after school on Friday she'd get there past 10:30 pm and go right to bed and essentially lose a day of the trip. Or a one hour 30 minute flight there, which means after school on Friday she'd get there by 5:30 pm and have hours to play, eat dinner, etc.

Kaylee came to me this morning holding a doll, asking me to do her hair up like the doll's hair. This is the third different hairstyle she's wanted me to try out on her. The only problem is that I have absolutely no capability in fixing hair. None. I wash mine, and I comb it. Then I'm done for the day. I don't blow dry it and I don't have styling gel usually. I perm it if it goes flat once a year or so. I don't dye it, I usually cut it myself if it gets long enough to bug me, I throw it in a ponytail when I get hot, and otherwise I don't bother with it. So now she wants this poofy here and this braided there and this curled here, and I'll tell you what, I'm trying. She went off to school today satisfied that her hair looked like Jasmine's, but it didn't quite turn out as I planned. Fortunately she was happy with it, so that's what matters. I'm going to need to take hairstyling classes soon. "Well dear, with the shape of your face, this style would look best. Pass Mommy those thinning shears and the hair shapers first..." (Yes, I Googled the terms and yes I know they wouldn't be appropriate for a little girl's already thin hair. :P) I still can't do her bun right for ballet. The last time, a different mom re-did Kaylee's hair backstage because she didn't like how my bun looked. I was just grateful. I can't get pigtail or ponytail scalp lines straight. I am a sad, sad hair-doer. But for her, and only for her, I am trying. :)

When she got home from school, I cut her a chunk of cheese with a glass of milk for a snack, and she was sitting at the table when I saw something moving by her arm. I looked closer, and it was a spider, and it was moving fast, right towards her. So I said "Kaylee, get up." and when she didn't move I said "Kaylee! Get UP!" She looks down, sees the spider right by her, tosses her chunk of cheese into the air, shrieks repeatedly like a girl from a horror movie, and runs to the other side of the room. Meanwhile I'm left rescuing the cheese and looking around for someone else to kill the spider. Such a person doesn't exist, so I do it with a paper towel. It's probably in the trash right now wiggling its way out of the wad. I hate spiders. I really hate spiders. Eight-legged little denizens of evil...

Tonight Kaylee officially finishes her Awanas book by going on a hike with her group at a local park and writing down some things she sees. She also gets to play at a park with several friends for 2 hours, which pleases her to no end, and works for me too. I'm always glad when she can hang out with other good kids and expend some energy and have some fun--and just be a kid. The teen years will get here too soon as it is, so hanging off of monkey bars and going down slides with not a care in the world for an afternoon sounds like a good plan for her to me. :)