Organization Girl

This is what we wish we could call Rachel. She is organized about the stuff she wants to be organized about -- for instance, one day a week or so ago, she just decided to clean off the top of her desk, and it has been neat ever since.

Monday, the first day of cheer camp, was not one of those days.

Drew sent her off with a bag containing her bathing suit, towel, lunch holder, and a tube of sunscreen and bug spray. He and I should have emphasized to her that she had to make sure she had everything at the end of the day -- and labeled it. Instead, I picked her up, we came home, and the next day (Tuesday), Drew was horribly grumpy because he discovered that the sunscreen and bug spray were missing. Turns out that Rachel had left them in a cubby at the community center where the "Y" camp was being held, because she assumed that it was the same as school -- and why shouldn't she have? Anyway, Drew scolded her, then I did (more lightly) and then she burst into tears and went upstairs. I called her down (I had to get going to a doctor's appointment), and she was still crying, and when I asked her why she said, "Because I don't want to disappoint you!" I told her to stop crying, everything would be okay, and then I went to the doctor and then on to work.

By the time my shift ended at work, I felt terrible -- I really shouldn't have yelled at her, she didn't know any better, and I shouldn't have told her to stop crying (I read a review of "Inside Out," a new Disney movie set in the mind of an 11-year-old girl who finally tells her parents that they can't expect her to be happy all the time). But when I called Drew, he told me everything was fine; she had forgotten about it by the time he picked her up; she was sitting at a table with her bag and before he could even ask her, she reached inside and showed him that she had remembered everything.

It's times like these where I think, "Good parenting? Bad parenting?" It's up in the air.