What's important?

What’s important to us is completely different to what’s important to our kids.  My 11 year old and his classmate ‘accidentally’ got their PE shirts mixed up in September.  Despite numerous attempts by the other mother and myself to get the boys to exchange freshly washed and ironed shirts, the boys are having none of it.  ‘What’s the big deal mum? We both have a shirt so why do we need to bother swapping back?’ Five months on, I have come to the same conclusion.  Showering offers another opportunity for divided opinion.  You would think that having a shower is the biggest punishment that I can bestow on my child.  ‘Why do I need to shower today after football training when I have cricket tomorrow?’ If he had his way, he wouldn’t shower again til the end of the football season.  Funnily enough, me saying things like, ‘You’ll never get a girlfriend if you don’t shower,’ don’t seem to help!
For my 8 year old, having a good general knowledge of each Moshi Monster’s name as well as mash and mosh statistics is important.  All I know is that I spend my time tripping over the little moshies when they are left on the carpet and I seem to have spent a fortune on buying the little foil packets which inevitably contain more doubles than new cards!
What’s of upmost importance to my almost 3 year old is that I can produce a snack and drink for her at the drop of a hat.  Hence, as most of us with offspring under the age of 5, I tend to travel everywhere with an overstuffed, slightly dishevelled bag containing as much clobber as a soldier would pack when  venturing out on a week’s manoeuvres.
 As for my 16 year old, top priority at the moment is preparing for leaver’s day and finding the all important prom dress.  This is proving to be as difficult as the Crusade for the Holy Grail! It can’t be too long, too formal, too casual, too fussy or too common. (I added too expensive to the mix.) Does this dress exist?  It seems to be as elusive as my never ending search for the perfect pair of jeans!  If anyone’s thinking, why don’t I resort to my normal tactic of Googling for it; believe me we’ve tried and apparently the perfect dress doesn’t seem to exist in cyber space either!    There are 12 Saturdays left before the big day and I fervently hope that we acquire the perfect dress in the next few weeks or else that’s my Saturdays scuppered til the middle of May!