Small Purse

"Ugggh....you are so dis-organized!!"

So is this quote parent to child, or child to parent?

In my case it is child to parent. One amusing thing about being a parent is seeing aspects of your child which are like you and others that are not. My daughter and I are similar in many ways- senses of humor, love of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, intense curiosity, night owls, love of reading, and fearless dorkiness.

One are of difference is organization. My daughter is organized. She can find her things, even if her room is messy- she has almost a supernatural way of seeing and establishing patterns and order. This ability also makes her a stand out math student, which I never was. She was organized even as a little tot. When she was three and had a crayon box of 16 crayons and when she put them away they were always in the same order. Sometimes I put them away in a willy-nilly fashion, carelessly shoving the black next to yellow, and she would stare at me with eyes blazing in disgust and anger- "Mommy! They don't go that way!"

Also, I used to keep a bag of Russet baking potatoes in a lower shelf in the kitchen when she was a toddler. She used dump out all the potatoes, wrap each one in a napkin "blankie" and pretend that she was a nurse and all the potatoes were her newborn babies and she would line them up in perfect size order and in a straight line. (I used to feel a ton of pressure to always have the same number of potatoes in the shelf, because after all I occasionally chopped up one of her potato babies for a meal or wrapped a patato baby in tinfoil, baked at at 425, slathered it with butter and ate it! I was always careful to buy more when I was planning a recipe that would require a raid the potato baby nursery.)

Anyway, she is organized, precise in many ways, therefore my disorganized, pack rat ways frustrate her. If you asked her what bothers her about me the most that might be it, other than the usual I nag her about brushing her teeth, eating her dinner, finishing her homework, etc.

So she wants some breath mints- she opens my purse and says, "Mom your purse is so full of crap! It is totally disorganized!"

Well, I can't argue there- there are mounds of receipts, lint, smashed candies, paper clips, a pirate's trove of coins and a tribe of pygmies in my purse.

We were shopping a Target and I thought I needed a new spring/summer type purse, and I found a style I really liked which was in several sizes. I, of course, needing to accomodate 9 months of receipts $80 in dimes, nickels and pennies and provide a new home for my tribe of purse pygmies - was looking at the 2 gallon bucket style. Allie literally grab it out of my hand and said "NO! you are not getting another big purse- you are getting a small purse so you can't put so much crap in it!"

I gave in. Today is my first day with my new small purse- the coins are actually in my wallet, I have a lip gloss, Altoids, cell phone, and keys in there- that's all that will fit. I still feel uncomfortable about it. Plus sad for the homeless purse pygmies.