Maya and me, and Maya

Maya and I are usually the first ones out of bed each weekday morning. Maya has to leave for school around 7:30 and I get up to help her with breakfast, make her lunch, and get myself ready to go to work. The other morning, I had the additional experience of helping her choose her school clothes. This is probably the last time I will ever be able to do this since, as Maya becomes more mature and aware, she will recognize that I am, to put it mildly, fashion-challenged.

When Maya was younger, my mother-in-law made her some skirts and pants. Maya still has some of those clothes and the other morning she pulled out this frizzy, red skirt and said, “Fancy Nancy would pay money for this skirt!” In case you don’t know, Fancy Nancy is a serialized book character who likes fancy things. She dresses fancy, uses fancy words, wants to go to fancy places, and likes fancy dogs. Fancy Nancy would definitely have paid money for this skirt!

After Maya decided she was going to wear it to school that day, I sat in and offered advice on a shirt and tights to go with it. Despite my failure to keep up with the "in-thing" in the world of style, in this case I think I did her right. I put the ix-nay on the purple flowery legging-type pants Maya picked to wear under the skirt. Instead, I directed her to a more reasonable pink tights ensemble. And even though it is my favorite of her shirts, and I would have loved to see her sporting it around the 2nd grade, I knew that her grey-blue Black Crowes T-shirt didn’t go well. Neither did her dingy, white sparkly T-shirt. Come to think of it, I can’t remember what shirt we picked out – but I know it matched, and she looked great. It was a fun time! Who knows, maybe because the experience went so well she’ll have enough confidence in my fashion acumen to take my input on what to wear to her first date? Her coronation? Her induction into the rock-and-roll Hall of Fame?

Which brings me to my next topic - Maya. She got her first quarter report card for the second grade and - WOW! - I'm not sure how she is going to top it. She got all E's (that's E for excellent) and 5's (a 5 is also for excellent) and AL's (that is above level). We may have to skip her ahead a few grades but are going to be forced to hold her back from enrolling for a degree to allow her college fund time to grow.

Seriously, it feels kind of neat to be parent to a good student. Not that I can really take much credit for her shining ability. I have zero role in her completing her homework and whenever I ask her what she is doing at school, she doesn't know. Maybe it's just my smarts and work ethic that have rubbed off on her, or the fact that I was smart enough to marry her mom. Actually, Maya is more my daughter than I give myself credit for - the only two G's she got (G is for good) were in grammar and music - proof that she and I are kin.