Sweating the Small Stuff

Remember that scene in Father of the Bride where Steve Martin completely loses it in the grocery store because hot dogs come ten to a package and hot dog BUNS come only in eights?!? Talk about your llama drama – making a huge deal out of a small issue!

Well I’m convinced that our daughters have been studying this movie and re-enacting that scene in various instances all week.

First it was Nylon-Gate, the morning when our daughter had to wear a pair of navy blue tights to school that felt different from the pairs she normally wears. This escalated into a full-blown scandal and by the end, there were tears (hers) and yelling (mainly me).

Then there was the afternoon when a friendly coloring activity turned into a total meltdown because one daughter selected a crayon that was allegedly ABOUT to be used by the other daughter. Isn’t that illegal in some states?

And finally, bath time. Honestly, I haven’t seen anyone resist a bath that strongly since Meryl Streep’s shower scene in Silkwood.

These are the things that drive Mama Llama crazy. I think that for the most part, everyone handles the big stuff in life as best they can and holds it together because they have to in order to get through the situation. People say not to sweat the small stuff…but sometimes that’s the hardest to deal with of all!

Of course, in Father of the Bride, you realize that there is a much larger issue than the hot dogs and buns. Steve Martin is dealing with the fact that his baby girl has grown up and is getting married, in addition to the anxiety associated with paying for the lavish wedding ceremony. It seems that the hot dog incident is just the final straw.

But in the case of our girls, we have two scary possibilities:

1) There are larger issues brewing that we just haven’t identified or been introduced to yet and these smaller problems represent the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s…er, LLAMA’s…back; or

2) These small issues – tights and crayons and baths, oh my! – really ARE big issues to our daughters. In this case, we can hope it’s because they’re still young, but we’d better start teaching them better coping skills or life is going to be really long!

On that note, I’ll end this post, get back to parenting and try to focus on the bigger picture. But by the way, why IS it that hot dogs come in tens and buns come in eights?!?