I believe I've addressed the ragamuffiness of Cadie Lu on several occasions. Well, perhaps one thing I haven't mentioned is that recently she's gotten into the bad habit of leaving clothing items of hers when she goes to play. The other day we reach the pinnacle of this when she came home entirely dressed in her friend's outfit. Apparently her clothing had been lost during a rousing game of princess dress-up and she was unable to even find a sock or her shoes. Bad news. (They were found a day later and returned to us.)
This, obviously, has extended to school. Last week she left two jackets, a scarf and her umbrella at school. Thanks to some serious nagging on my part we have gotten all but one jacket back. However, despite my repeated begging she has yet to find that last one. She insists the remaining jacket just puffed into the universe never to be seen again.
I'm guessing it wasn't in her direct line of sight and thus, in her mind, truly doesn't exist. Either that or her teacher didn't hand it to her while grabbing her face and forcing eye contact and saying "Cadie Lu, this jacket belongs to you, please carry it home."
This morning I was out running some errands and decided to stop by the school and retrieve the jacket myself. Luckily I happened by at her lunch time and her classroom was empty. Said jacket was casually lounging on the coat rack. Not in the back or on the floor. Nope. It was sitting on the rack directly above her hook. It may as well have been on Mars as far as she was concerned.
So, I grabbed the jacket and was preparing to walk out of the classroom when I had one word hit me. Tears. Today when Cadie Lu gets home from kindergarten she will start crying the second she sees me because she STILL won't have that jacket - which she hasn't thought about until the moment she gets home and remembers I want her to bring it home.
And I am so tired of crying. And I am so tired of scapegoating. And I'm getting awfully tired of alien clothing abductions. So, I went back to her classroom, found her backpack and zipped the missing jacket into it.
I figure when she comes home it will be like Christmas morning as she unzips her backpack and "finds" her missing jacket. She'll be so proud of herself for following through with my request. She'll smile and high-five me and prance about basking in the glory of the moment.
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Follow up: When Ms. Cadie Lu got home and pulled her missing jacket out of her backpack her eyes grew wide. Then, her surprise was quickly followed up with a smug smile and these words to me:
"See, Mama. I told you I didn't leave that jacket at school!"
Hmm...next time I think I'll let her sweat it out!
2 comments:
Awesome! I love Cadie Lu...my girls are still confused as to how she left a pair of pants and socks here without knowing. :) And that is SO genius to put the jacket in her backpack to "find" later. Although, disappearing into the universe isn't unheard of...it happened to one of Brielle's jackets last year. I even personally went looking at the school and asked the teacher. It was never again seen. :P Kids.
You do realize that your kids are as smart as you right? So pretty much it's like a HUGE chess game between you and the kiddos, each waiting for the next one to make a move! ha ha! This latest feat is AWESOME! Except I think you did a pre-mature victory dance - ha ha!
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