Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Dawn's Birthday

Dawn turned 14 on Saturday. She got her birthday gift from me on Sunday afternoon. It was a fuchia-colored wheelie backpack from Sears (on sale, not that she knows that). I hate getting presents for teenage girls, because I never know what they really want. I was looking for a big stuffed animal like the dog she got me for my birthday (when you don't know what to give, give what they gave you???), but couldn't find one in my frantic last-minute shopping spree Friday night.

The backpack has some embroidery and also a row of charms across the middle--hearts and stars, etc. What I didn't realize until Aurora tried it out was there's a battery in there that makes them light up in sequence when you wheel the backpack! I started laughing. I hope that's not too kiddie for her. She seemed OK with it, though.

For her 8th-grade graduation I got her one of those topic books with pictures in them--I forget who publishes them, but they're kind of like Time-Life. Anyway, this one was about detection and police work, since Dawn thinks she might want to be a detective. That's the kind of present I can groove on a little more easily than a frou-frou backpack, but I don't want her to think I don't respect her girliness. She can be as girly as she wants to be.

She is interested in my lack of fashion sense. We were talking about makeup a while ago and I said I didn't like that white eyeshadow line some girls wear. Weeks later she asked me about that and about the simplicity of my fashion style. It's interesting to see how much attention they pay to you. I haven't thought about this much since I taught high school freshmen and sophomores at all-girls Catholic school. They really do watch everything about you. Well, at least she'll see one woman in her life who doesn't worry too much about clothes and makeup.

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