And She's Off

We survived packing for China. Not only survived, but kept the scream fighting to a minimum. My family knows what a miracle this is for the type B mom and the Type A child. Anything involving any sort of anticipation or worry or preparation or stress turns my sweet perfect oldest child into a screaming, crying, devil child. Not this time, though, she says it was the packing two days ahead of time that helped her hold it all together. I'm so proud of KiKi, she's learning, she really is.

For your enjoyment, here are two scream fights we had leading up to her departure:

Thursday night she had a few last minute things to get before she flew out the next day. Instead of taking her and going to Walmart, I took Chris so we could get her a few birthday things for the next morning. Taking Chris required waiting for ALL the little ones to be ALL the way asleep or else they'd wander out and find us missing and wreak havoc on KiKi, who really didn't need that right then. Waiting, as it turned out, was the right thing to do, since Superturd kept getting out of bed until 10pm. Leaving that late meant that we didn't get done and home until after midnight. I was so glad that KiKi had just gone to bed and not waited up. Usually we hear from her when we're gone so long...

Oh, I thought you were in bed....are you CRYING?

I CALLED YOU EIGHT TIMES AND YOU NEVER ANSWERED EITHER CELL PHONE AND I JUST KNEW THAT YOU WERE DEAD IN A HORRIBLE ACCIDENT SOMEWHERE AND I'VE BEEN CRYING FOR LIKE TWO HOURS!!!

Oh, honey, maybe our cell phones don't get reception in Walmart. I'm sorry. See, we're fine and we got all of your stuff for you...

I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD AND ALL I COULD THINK OF WAS "OH GREAT THERE GOES MY CHINA TRIP, ALL THAT MONEY DOWN THE DRAIN. AND I'M GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF THESE KIDS NOW, WHAAAAWHHAAAA".

So, we were dead and you were angry at us because you wouldn't get to go to China and you'd have "these kids" to worry about? That's sweet, here's your new underwear.

Ok, so that one wasn't even a fight. She was just very tired and we missed her calls. Still, I found it amusing, as I'm sure she won't when she reads this.

Then, the morning of the much anticipated departure, we needed to be at the neighboring High School at noon. The buses were leaving at 1pm. We needed to stop at the Post Office to grab our mail (it's on our way, and we don't get in line or anything, just grab the mail) and Costco for me to run in and get her an International Calling Card (our Costco is small, no big lines). I tell her that leaving at 11:30 should be fine, because both stops are on our way.

How about 11:15, I'd feel much more comfortable with 11:15.

Fine, honey, 11:15.

Well, 10:15 comes and she is a bundle of Type A nerves and starts to really lose it and demands that we leave NOW. I did it. I actually left my house two hours before we needed to be somewhere 20 minutes away. That's how clear it was that she was right on that very crumbly edge of sanity and might slip over any minute, then who knows how long before she pulls it together, I certainly didn't want to have to smack her in the face like right before she went on stage in ANNIE and she couldn't get the back stage door open to get her change of costume and she was in, for real, hysterics and I had to do that thing they do in cartoons where they scream PULL IT TOGETHER, MACKENZIE, and shake the person really hard. Clearly, getting her to the school was all that was going to relax her. Much like my oldest sister, BECKY, she's always sure that THESE DARN LITTLE KIDS or her SLACKER MOM are going to make her late, and how embarrassing is that?! and she'll probably miss out on something amazing, because they all suck so bad, and life will be SO MUCH BETTER when she's old enough to get herself where she needs to be, and even better than that when she's at college and not here.

About 6 blocks from the school we hit a slow light and had to wait through three light changes. She went into some sort of shaking, rocking, murmuring thing. Poor kid. I screamed at her that theschool was RIGHT THERE, YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE IT. We got there so early that by the time the buses pulled up those darn little kids and I where hot and miserable and crying and I couldn't even stick around for the next hour and a half to put her on the bus. I really was sad about that, even though half of our Ward was there with her, I still wanted to wave goodbye.

I'm proud of us. We both realized some things and I normally wouldn't have taken her that early, because that would just be crazy, and normally she would have lost it many more times, but it was way more pleasant than even finals week, or packing for Girl's Camp.

She's really pulling it together. Good girl Kiki!