Dating the Kids: Date 2, Kiddo #1 ~ Coffee before school

She went for the iced coffee & I went for a white mocha

My eldest had the dumbest schedule last week because the schools were doing the State's standardized testing last week. She's in 7th grade and didn't have as many tests as the 8th graders and therefore, the school didn't want them there until almost two hours after school began. It really wouldn't be that big of a deal except I needed one kiddo at school by 8:15, the 7th grade to her school by 9:35 and my kiddo with a broken leg needed to get to school to do testing at 12:30 pm and then pick her up at 2:30, get the 7th grader at 3:00 and the last kiddo at 3:30. 

The first day of this, I ran back and forth. The second day and told my 7th grader she was just going to have to go to study hall after I dropped off her sister at 8:15, I could not waste gas doing all that driving. The third day, I decided I would take my 7th grader out for coffee after her sister was dropped off at 8:15 and that would give us a little more than an hour to chat over coffee.

We got coffee and sat in Starbucks (my least favorite coffee place in the world but the closest to the schools). There were probably three or four other parents and kids from her school doing the very same thing. It was just perfect. We sat at a table and talked about everything: friends, homework, boys (yep...but just the one that counts), dating, careers and just life. We talked about our best friends moving away and cried a bit. We talked about my mom (who was very close to my eldest when she passed away 3 years ago) and cried a bit more. We talked about horses, she wants to jump horses and do barrel races for a living. We talked about what subjects may be very important for that kind of job to include the one she hates right now, Latin. She talked, I listened and then I talked and she listened and the we both just chatted.

It had been far too long since her and I had that kind of talk. I learned a lot about her that I didn't know (new information in a pre-teen world changes so quickly). I learned about new friends. I learned about the boy she likes (though I already knew who he was). I learned about some of her fears. It might have been the best date every. I can't wait till we have another. An hour over coffee can make a world of difference in a mother/daughter relationship during the teen years.