More than I ever wanted to know about Taylor Swift

The 2nd grade class at Morgan's school has a "Wax Museum" project that they do every year.  I'm told that kids with older siblings plan out who they want to be years in advance!  The basic idea is that each 2nd grader chooses a famous person, alive or dead, researches them, makes a poster about them, and then also dresses up like them to give a presentation.  The presentations are done three times and are open to the public (read: parents and grandparents who will sit through it) Therefore, sort of like a Wax Museum.  Except that the people talk.  And move.  And tell you about themselves.

So, kind of like the Wax Museum that resides in your nightmares.  But I digress....

Morgan chose Taylor Swift (as did 14 other little girls in 2nd grade) We researched Taylor online and found books.  We made a poster and we found an outfit that would work and also not cost us a fortune.

Here is the finished poster.....

Did I mention that I thought we had until Friday to complete the poster but  Morgan informed me while getting ready for swimming lessons at 5:30 on Tuesday night that the ENTIRE PROJECT was actually due on WEDNESDAY?  She said it all nonchalant too.  She was like "oh Mom, did you remember that my Wax Museum project is due tomorrow?" and I'm like "uh...NO, I most certainly did NOT"

She felt bad the rest of the night and even said a few times that it was her fault we were rushing around God's green earth to buy poster board and begging all of our friends for a long blonde wig!  I told her that it would have been nice if she'd remembered to tell me that earlier, but that I had also seen the information sheet last week and had just mis-read it.

So the next challenge was the outfit.  Even Daddy got in on the action and stopped on his way home from work to find a super cute cowboy hat.  Morgan really wanted to wear an old black prom dress of mine but it was going to require a lot of sewing and I didn't want to ruin the dress.  Finally, I came up with this (horrible picture quality, I know...but it paints a picture, doesn't it?) 

The sparkly top is part of a (butt ugly) dance costume my mother had inexplicably saved from a part of my life that I never want to relive. Then we had the jeans, the jean jacket & the guitar and we borrowed the boots from my mom.  This was before the addition of the cowboy hat, make up and anything being done to her hair since we never did find a long blonde wig.

Needless to say, we skipped swimming lessons because Chris was gone out of town for a work meeting and I had all 3 kids and a HUGE project to help Morgan finish.  We rushed through dinner and out to Meijer to pick up the poster board and other things we needed.  We came home and worked through Mommy's Type-A personality trait issues while Morgan sloooooooowly tyyyyyped eeeeeeach leeetttter oooooooonn heeeeeerrrrrr reeeeeeeeeepooooooooooort.

I really really really tried hard to let her do it how she wanted.  But had I let her do it all on her own, we would have had a poster that said TaylorSwi diagonally down the poster and then "ft" underneath that with such gems as "Taylor Swift is a signer" (Now, I don't know if she meant she MADE signs or if she was really good at sign language) and further proof of her unending quest for overachievement with "Taylor had a mom and a dad"  *sigh*

In the end, we had Mommy carefully suggesting some additional ideas to Morgan in a way to make it seem like it was still her idea so she wouldn't immediately shoot the idea down.  It wasn't until 10pm when I was exhausted and high on glue fumes and Morgan wanted to hand draw music notes all around her poster herself that I put my foot down and told her that if she wanted it on there, I'd need to do it for her.  I was not going to let this child deface the somewhat neat and tidy poster we had assembled with her big black blobs that may or may not resemble music notes.

She lost it.  She cried. She really wanted to put the notes on.

I really wanted to go to bed.

Chris even joined in and said "Morgan, we aren't trying to be mean, we're just saying that you are only 7 and you don't know how to make music notes as well as Mommy does" to which Morgan replied through tears "well it sure sounds like you're being mean!"  Like.....It's not what you said, it's how you said it!

Seriously?  Is she starting her period?

Anyway, the compromise was she did ONE NOTE and I did the rest.  I sent her up to put on jammies and brush teeth.  I came up to tuck her in completely exhausted and wondering what in the world the poor kids who don't have literate parents were going to do.  I was frazzled and just wanted to change my clothes, lay down, and try to extract the mind-numbing permanent marker smell from my nose.  And it was then that something happened that changed me from frazzled to near tears.

In a small voice Morgan said "Thank you, Mommy.  I love you!"

*melts*

I love that kid.