Sad Realization (and cute School Project)

Yesterday, I realized something that made me rather sad.  It's not that my kids are growing up too fast (which they are), it's not that every time I look in the mirror I see more gray hairs (which I do), but the realization that I came to is that

 my oldest daughter is just like me.

Why is that such a bad thing?  Because, along with a love of reading, a love of creative projects, and the ability to plan out some fun get-togethers,

my daughter has also inherited 

my undesirable traits 

of forgetfulness and procrastination.  

I will readily admit that I'm not the most organized person.  I try, I really do, but I'm terrible at remembering to RSVP or bring back library books on time.   I always wait until the last minute to do things.  I think many times I come up with my most creative solutions at the 11th hour, but you can pretty much count on me to be a frazzled mess at 2 in the morning before any big event or deadline.

 Unfortunately, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks and this old dog has just come to accept that she works well at the last minute and the chaos that sometimes results is just a fact of my life.   It was a little sad though, to see my puppy acting the same way.

Here was the situation yesterday...

My third grader had two projects due this week ~ an oral book report and a quilt that reflects our family values.  According to her, the book report was due on Thursday and the quilt project was due Friday.  I had been helping her to break it down into parts so both would be completed in time.  (See, I'm trying overcome my natural procrastination tendencies here!)

What follows is a brief timeline of the day...

11:30 am ~ I'm at her school ( I work there part-time) and after seeing her teacher in the hallway, I learn that we were mistaken, the quilt project is due first!  Instead of having two more evenings to get it done, it was due the next day.  (YIKES!)  I realize we're going to have to scrap our plans to do a glue batik project like we'd be planning and come up with Plan B. 

1:00 pm ~ I get off work and go right to JoAnn Fabrics to pick up the materials for Plan B ~ prequilted fabric and some Heat n' Bond. 

1:30 pm ~ I get home and outline some square shapes on some white cotton fabric and get out the colors of acrylic paints she'll need

4:30 pm ~ My daughter gets home on the bus.  ( A big downside to not starting school until 9am is the late dismissal time).  As she comes up to the door she has a slightly worried look on her face.  "Um, Mom, I made a mistake, my quilt and report are due tomorrow and my book commercial isn't due until Friday. " 

4:45 pm ~ I explain to my daughter my thoughts for Plan B ~ paint the pictures on squares of fabric like planned, but then cutting them out and  ironing them onto quilted fabric.  She agrees and gets to work sketching her pictures onto the quilt squares so she can get ready to paint them.  Meanwhile, I get my younger two kids set up with something so they'd stay out of our way so we can work.  (I'm not going to lie, I gave them each a bowl of dry cereal, turned on the TV downstairs and told them they could watch all the iCarly and Victorious that they wanted!)

5:15 pm ~ I quickly heat up some frozen kid dinners that I keep on hand for emergency situations like this and feed my younger two.

(At this point, I start taking a few pictures when I realize I can turn the madness into a blog post! ;) )

6:00 pm ~ My daughter is hard at work painting all the different animals and symbols on the squares.  (Each one represents a different family value that she researched and felt reflected our family).  I'm helping her paint the solid color backgrounds (Each color is also symbolic.)

Notice the apple core?  I told her she couldn't eat dinner until the painting was done.

6:30 pm ~ All the painting is done and she and I break for something to eat.

6:55 pm ~ The paintings are dry and I iron some Heat n' Bond Ultra hold onto the backs and cut out the squares.

7:15 pm ~ She helps arrange the quilt squares onto the prequilted fabric.

7:30 pm ~ She works on writing all her research notes into paragraph form, while I iron on the squares.  We wait for the paint to dry on the two squares we'd forgotten about and then put the Heat n' Bond on them.

7:40 pm ~ While she continues writing up her research, I iron the last squares on and trim the edges.  (We were going to sew on binding but nixed that idea and just left them unfinished ~ still looks fine!)

7:55 pm ~ She's finished writing up her report and hot glues some loops of ribbon on the top of the quilt.  I dig around the craft room and find a dowel rod that's the perfect size.

8:00 pm ~ Quilt is finished, report is written and we're all done by bedtime!  (Phew!!)

I'm proud to say that this mother/daughter procrastination team came through okay.  The quilt turned out adorable and she didn't cry once during the process (which if any of you have a sometimes emotional 9 year old, you know that's an accomplishment!).  I'm also proud to say that I only hollered a few times myself when she started to get sassy and whine that she was tired of working and wanted to watch TV with her brother and sister.  ( "Don't you start that with me!  You put a bee on your quilt to show that the value of perseverance and hard work is important in our family.  Now stop your whining and start working hard!")


How about you?  Have you noticed that any of your less desirable character traits are showing up in your own kids?