Are we late yet?

Eric and I are both 'type A' people, so it's no surprise that L - our first born - has always shown those tendencies.  I have always tried to be very careful to be encouraging to her in all situations because she tends to be hard on herself. This has been the case since she was very young. Ex: until recently she didn't like drawing very much because she "can't draw like Daddy".  We had a small issue with potty training because she was so hard on herself when she had an accident that it made it mentally really difficult for her. (We recognize that about her and have been talking with her pretty much forever about just doing the best you can, it's ok to make mistakes, even mommy and daddy make mistakes sometimes, etc.) 

This past weekend I caught a glimpse of another piece of me that has handed down. This one though, I think, is my fault. It's a little embarassing and a wake up call for me.

Last weekend Eric had class, so I planned to take the kids down to Bend for the weekend. We planned to leave Friday, but had no target "leave time". As I loaded everything into the car and started hooking L in to her seat, she said, "Are we late, Mommy?" like she was very concerned. Unfortunately, this was not the first time she has asked me that and it wasn't the last. She proceeded to ask me if we were late about every 10 minutes for the first hour we drove. You know how some kids say, "Are we there yet?" Well, apparently in our house, the refrain will be, "Are we late yet?"

Over the past couple of weeks, L has been asking me pretty regularly when we get into the car if we are late. Even when we are late, I've been trying to take that as a sign to back off a bit and just relax. It's like she's holding up a mirror saying, "I can tell you are stressing out so I'm going to stress out too!" And I feel silly because 99.9% of the time, "lateness" is not a very big deal at all. But it is true, I definitely get anxious when I feel like I'm late for something.

Good lesson. Our kids pick up on more than we know, and those things sink in, sometimes more than we would probably like. I'll be working on not worrying about lateness, and just enjoying the moment instead. And also not cursing like a sailor everytime we are in the car together.

Just kidding on that last part!