It's a Family Tradition

Case in Point #1

Gary got them when he was in fourth grade (he thinks so, at least; when you get his age, it's a little hard to remember these things).

I got mine when I was in seventh grade (although I resisted wearing them, until it pretty much became a necessity).

McKenna got hers when she was in second grade.

Delaney got hers in first grade.

And now, Sydney has hers.

It started again with Sydney when she came home and told me she was having trouble seeing the promethium board (yes, glasses! and no, it's not trouble with blackboards or "chalk"boards anymore).

I told her she might need to get glasses like the rest of us and soon was vascillating between not wanting them ("I'll look like a geek!"; I reassured her that geeks are some of the best people in the world), to thinking they might be okay (especially after trying on a million pairs at the eye doctor and deciding that they're pretty "cool"), to desperately wanting them (one night while I was out grocery shopping at ten p.m. she called me to say that she "Needs my glasses right now. My eyes are getting blurrier and blurrier by the minute." I just smiled at ever my near-sided drama queen).

Now that she has glasses like the rest of us (and is part of the proverbial "Blind as a Bat Wray Club"), she's getting used to them. She still forgets to wear them all the time, but is also amazed at how clear things (tree branches! a softball coming at her!) look when she does.

And she definitely does not look geeky in them. Of if she does, she is just joining the cute geek club. And continuing along in a family tradition.

Case in Point #2

It was the summer of 1984 and it marks the one and only time I've ever yelled at my mother.

Back in the 80s (think back real hard now!), most of our cars had something called a clutch and these things called gear shifts. My parents had a cute little 1978 Mustang for me to drive; as I approached my 16th birthday, I had to learn how to drive a stick shift if I wanted to be the proud owner of that little red car.

I had high hopes for my first driving lesson...until we approached the first stop sign on a hill in the very hilly neighborhood where I grew up. I tried to push on the accelerator at the same time I relased the clutch; I began to roll backwards; my Mom began to pant; I began to yell.

We somehow got home safely, and I promptly announced that I would not get back in the car with Mom ever, ever again. Dad intervened, and the rest of my learning-to-drive experience was much smoother than it started out (he took me to a very large parking lot at a nearby softball field and we drove and drove and drove until I eventually "got" it).

Fast forward to 2011 and we have another daughter getting ready to drive (I know, I know, it was just yesterday that McKenna got her driver's license, but you know that thing about time flying...). Actually, Delaney is just approaching 15, but for a while now she's been telling us that she wants a Volkswagon Bug more than anything. Thinking that it might take four or five months to find a good used one that we could afford, we were giving ourselves plenty of time. Lo and behold, though, if we didn't find one right away. Only thing is....the car is a stick shift.

Delaney, however, was simply blinded by the fact that the car is a cute Bug and she swore that she'd learn how to drive a stick shift.

(Thank goodness we have over a year to do so.)

Following another well-traveled family tradition, I assigned Gary the task of teaching Delaney to drive the car (I briefly tried teaching McKenna four years ago, until I had flashbacks of my experience with Mom and quickly handed the keys over to Gary), and she has been wanting to practice non-stop ever since.

She sure looks awfully cute in the car (as does McKenna, who is also learning to drive it; as do I, who remembers how fun it is to drive a stick).

And so goes time, and traditions.