Gifts From Children…

are so precious.

Two years ago my lovely daughter picked the Christmas season to test her ability to remove things from stores without the benefit of PAYMENT. I was thrilled to recieve a phone call (while at a festive gathering) from a very kind police officer who had the misfortune of dealing with shoplifters at STUFF Mart.
It was just a lip gloss. She had the money to pay for it. She just didn’t.
She was banned from the store for one year.

This was the year she asked for gift certificates. Guess where most of them were redeemable?

This year her early gift to me was an afternoon suspension for smoking. Interesting. I must be completely riding the denial boat, because to believe her I have to admit she is the first non-smoker nailed for having a cigarette in her hand on school property. If that’s the case I informed her that she deserved the suspension for STUPIDITY.

She managed to top that gift too!
She dropped a course because she didn’t get along with the teacher. The course was LAW. She could ace that course. She already had a run-in with the LAW.

Most recently a teacher called to inform me she stopped going to math.
For a month.

All of this is painful to acknowledge for one reason.

I did all that when I was her age. All of it.
(Except for the getting caught part.)