Sarah Nigbor

I’ve had a terrible cold/sore throat/cough for over a week now, and it’s sapping me of any giddyup and go I had left. It’s hard to get well when each day is jampacked with work and activities from sunrise to well past sunset. I wonder what it would be like to be able to take a day off from anything and actually rest. Ah, some day.

Sunday our 4-H club participated in the annual volleyball tournament held at River Falls High School. Being a club leader, I felt obligated to be there even though I felt like a train wreck (and I promise I tested negative for Covid) and sounded like a three-pack-a-day smoker. Plus, I wanted to see my daughter play and know she had her mom cheering for her.

While the tournament started more than an hour later than it was supposed to, we still had a fun day. My hoarse voice became hoarser from cheering and shouting encouragement. By the time we left that night, I felt like a train wreck times two and my throat hurt terribly. This is of course when dear daughter informed me she had nothing she wanted to wear for her band/choir concert the next evening and could we please go to Target to find something? The last thing I wanted to do was go shopping, on a Sunday night, while sick, with a picky tween, who takes FOREVER to pick out anything. The thought literally made me want to fake narcolepsy and sleep right there.

But I’m a sucker and when I looked at her earnest face, to Target we went. I remember what it was like to be a self-conscious middle schooler who doesn’t quite know what to wear, who is worried about what they’ll look like or if their outfit will be okay. I figured I’d suck it up and make her happy.

As we went round and round the clothes racks at Target, my attitude slowly sank lower and lower. I kept a smile plastered on my face, but I honestly thought about running to the bedding aisle and diving into the pillows to hide … and sleep. If you’ve gone shopping with a tween, you know that everything you suggest is met with a look of utter disdain and a flat “no.” Shame on me for not solidifying this outfit ahead of time. But I’ve been burning the candle at both ends and it slipped through the cracks of daily to-dos. The only thing to do was plow on and find something she would agree to wear that was acceptable concert attire.

Imagine my shock and elation when she liked a flowy white shirt I pointed out. I carefully curbed my enthusiasm for fear that it would squash her agreeable reaction like a bug. I pretended to not care if she liked it or not, but offered it as something she might not have seen. It worked! She even found a pair of nice black dress pants to go with it. In less than 15 minutes! A record!

As I sat in the audience tonight, sucking on a Halls lemon cough drop praying I wouldn’t melt into a coughing fit, I saw her smiling face looking back at me and knew suffering at Target had been worth it. I’m trying to treasure each moment with her because she’s already in sixth grade. I swear it was just yesterday I attended her 4YK concert and now she’s in middle school and taller than me.

She can play the flute and she loves to sing and before I know it, she’ll be looking back at me with a graduation cap on her hair. I can’t stand the thought of that yet, so I’ll just treasure all the trips to Target (even when I’m not in the mood to go) and the cajoling her out of bed in the morning. I’ll even try to enjoy corralling her out the door when we’re running late because she spent 20 minutes washing her face. I’m pretty sure I won’t remember being sick with a cold, but I will remember her joyful smile. That is why we push on through the hard parts of parenting, right?