Nutcracker: The Invitation

To be quite honest, Hailey and I have not been getting along as well as we should recently. She is a really high-strung girl (those who know her can "amen" that comment) and talks incessantly from morning until night. She is extremely sensitive and struggles with the way clothes "feel" on her body. It take her five minutes and a lot of tears to put her socks on every day because the seams need to line up just right across her toes. Her coat has to be "just so" and not poke her neck in any way. And this problem has just been exacerbated by the cold weather, which requires sweaters, snow pants, mittens, boots, and hats, which induces more and more tears. It is such a trial to get her ready for school. By the end of the day she is low on patience, and so am I.

I was talking about this a few weeks ago with John, and he offhandedly commented that Hailey and I need to have a positive experience together sometime. This rolled around in my head for awhile, and thought about positive experiences. The one Hailey remembers the most was so simple. This summer I took her with me to the mall to do some shopping. She needed new jeans, and I had a little bit of photo money to spend. I let Hailey choose clothes for me to try on, and she turned out to be the best shopper. Her clothes choices were fresh and interesting. She leans more towards gaudy and decorated (see here), but it was still a fun adventure. And then we got Jones sodas and sat out on the quad in the middle of the mall, and watched the fountains and the clouds, and I let Hailey talk as much as she wanted. And I listened. Hailey remembers it because it did it just for her.

So we've been needing another special "us" experience. And it popped up when Hailey came home from school and told me that she had learned about the Nutcracker Ballet in music time and would really want to see it. John and I decided that part of Hailey's Christmas would be a special date with me to go to the Milwaukee Ballet performance.

So the planning began. I made a special fancy invitation with a gift of a Nutcracker that was waiting for her when she got home from school one day. This day I was crowned "The Best Mom In The World" by my daughter. I'll ignore that she has a flare for the dramatic, and feel good about the compliment.