<p>So in a couple weeks my youngest D will be a rising senior.
Neither one of us know how time went so quickly.</p>
<p>Her school has many traditions, this past week for instance was school spirit week culminating in purple and white day ( their school colors)
One tradition is “froshing”. Either dressing freshmen up in ugly clothes by upperclassmen , that their parents wore in the 70s or by throwing them in the lake.
Guess which activity, my quiet daughter was involved in?
Since the school has relocated to another neighborhood while it is being remodeled they had to * drive* the freshmen to the lake.</p>
<p>But it went quite well. My daughter and her friend,only froshed kids that they knew from sport teams & bought them ice cream after. Their froshlings even asked if they could bring other kids.
This was one of the things that I was warned about when D wanted to attend Garfield. That the kids “hazed” other kids.:eek:
That worried me a little.
But D assured me that they only do it to kids who want to & that it wasn’t fun to force kids to jump in. They also lucked out and had a gorgeous day yesterday. I don’t imagine either group would have wanted to participate if it had been rainy and cold. They all looked very happy afterwards but warned their froshlings to say how mean they had been, so as not to get more annoying kids next year.</p>
<p>Afterwards I drove her to another friends house who lived on the opposite side of town so they could get ready for the evenings school dance. She kept thanking me for driving her ( her friend with the car wasn’t going to the dance), but I told her, that I was happy to drive, because then it meant she wasn’t in the car with someone who might have been drinking or wasn’t a good driver. That I knew that she usually made good decisions, but that when I was her age, I had gotten into cars of people I didn’t really even know out of “necessity”.
She replied" I’m not like that, my friends are good drivers and I make better choices than you did"
Ouch!
Shes right though-
When I was in junior high, I had two groups of friends- one were all girls & were “good” studious, and responsible. Then I had a group of friends that were more adventurous. Both boys and girls, parents who didn’t supervise, older brothers with cars.
I chose the “fun” group and lived to regret it ( eventually 
)
A few times, I tried to regain my friendship with the “good kids” but its pretty hard to change your perception of people especially in high school.</p>
<p>But I realizing that my daughter is much more capable and mature than I knew. Not only was she able to smoothly transition from one group of friends to another group of friends that made better choices and were very responsible, she has a cool head.</p>
<p>Earlier this week, I had a “little” accident and my foot was mangled- nothing broken but it hurt like hell.
She completely took charge- while my H just stood there trying to get me to tell him what happened, even though I couldn’t talk.</p>
<p>She really was amazing- she was textbook on what to do.
I have been reevaluating my perception of her, because to me, she is still the same recalcitrant kid that does things like take off her cast when she was 5, pierce her own ears when she was 7 and took off her newly applied braces when she was 14.</p>
<p>Ive been slowly shifting my perception of my older daughter- she is 25 after all and a college grad- even though her personality ( or ADD )makes it very easy to remember when she was 10.</p>
<p>But with my younger daughter- I feel as out of it as when you * just* notice that a friend shaved off their beard and they tell you they did two years ago.
</p>
<p>Im sure others have stories about their kids where you wonder " wow! where did they learn how to do that? "
So spill. :D</p>