So it's happening. Last post I wrote about the 10 year old wanting me to be boring around her friends... like do not draw undue attention. Be. The. Coat. Rack. Make yourself useful and nothing more.
Fine... I resolved to take it in stride. This is what I had been waiting for, right? I have longed for this day, an unravelling of the umbilicus before it strangled me to death. I remember when all three of them were little and they would pounce on me, like a weakened wildebeast straggling behind the herd, to exhausted to fight. There was never enough of me to go around, so much so that I lost myself for a good long while. There's still not quite enough of me to go around for the boys, but while I wasn't looking, she unwrapped herself. She has been picked to run the Marathon of Respect and Equality, something she has wanted to do for the last few years... school kids usually go down to watch the runners finish. This year she gets to run and I was talking about how I was going to juggle my work schedule to be there when she finished.
"Uh, mom, you don't have to be there..." she opens. "No, honey, I'll make it work" I say. The it hit's me..." um... unless you don't want me to be there" (thinking this could not possibly be true). She gives me a look of relief like I've finally gotten it and she didn't have to spell it out.
"Oh," I say.. "so you don't want anyone there to see you finish the big race? You've been wanting to run in this for years." She replies, "well my friends and teachers will be there"
Subtext: they are enough... I don't need you. The person I need to be proud of me at that moment is. not. you.
So here it is... the moment when the umbilicus begins to unravel and stretch. That bond that we forged when she is little, for the first 7 or 8 years of her life is all that will hold her to me for the next 10 or so years... it's going to stretch out while she floats away from me. I'm sure it will be strong enough to get us through, until she comes back to me.
This is the moment I was waiting for, her launch, getting a piece of myself back again.
It doesn't quite fit as nicely as it used to.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Alpha Female
So I spent the early years of this blog writing about the mind-numbing stress of raising two intense twin boys who seemed intent on wringing every bit of sanity from my withered shell. They are six now, and while life is still "busy".. things have settled to the point where I can now take a breath, sleep in on the weekends (except for the new *&%$# hockey practise... 730 am ice time on Sat WTF!!) I have to say that things are trucking along ok...
Enter the TWEEN. No, it did not say Queen... although that is probably the expecation. My now ten year old girl. She is a brilliant, beautiful precocious girl. She has always seemed older than her years and is now entering a new phase of her life. I told her when she was younger that someday she would grow to be embarrassed by me, would think she hated me at times and would want nothing to do with me for years. She did not believe me when at age 7 I told her I would be the last person she would want to hang out with.
It started a few months ago, at age 9... with her asking me haltingly... "Mom, do you think you could be a little less.... ummm, enthusiastic when you pick up my friends in the car?". I recognized the beginning of the end when I saw it, but I have to say it took me about 5 more months to figure out that she did not want a "fun, cool mom"... which incidently, I thought I would EXCEL at .... but a boring, invisible mom. Turns out she wants to be the only act in town when her friends are around. Makes sense. I was not hurt. I worked with teens long enough to know that this is totally normal behavior and I have seen them come back. I have faith that I am not losing her forever, that she will like cool, adventerous mom when she is old enough to work through her identity and find her confidenece.
I need to write this down so I can remember that I am not hurt by this behavior, this is the beginning of a long period of anthropological research on my part. I'm like the Jane Goodall of my house. She didn't take it personally when her apes threw poop at her, so I am going to attempt to remain stoic when she throws shit at me.
I'll have to continue to ask myself, WWJD? What would Jane do?
Enter the TWEEN. No, it did not say Queen... although that is probably the expecation. My now ten year old girl. She is a brilliant, beautiful precocious girl. She has always seemed older than her years and is now entering a new phase of her life. I told her when she was younger that someday she would grow to be embarrassed by me, would think she hated me at times and would want nothing to do with me for years. She did not believe me when at age 7 I told her I would be the last person she would want to hang out with.
It started a few months ago, at age 9... with her asking me haltingly... "Mom, do you think you could be a little less.... ummm, enthusiastic when you pick up my friends in the car?". I recognized the beginning of the end when I saw it, but I have to say it took me about 5 more months to figure out that she did not want a "fun, cool mom"... which incidently, I thought I would EXCEL at .... but a boring, invisible mom. Turns out she wants to be the only act in town when her friends are around. Makes sense. I was not hurt. I worked with teens long enough to know that this is totally normal behavior and I have seen them come back. I have faith that I am not losing her forever, that she will like cool, adventerous mom when she is old enough to work through her identity and find her confidenece.
I need to write this down so I can remember that I am not hurt by this behavior, this is the beginning of a long period of anthropological research on my part. I'm like the Jane Goodall of my house. She didn't take it personally when her apes threw poop at her, so I am going to attempt to remain stoic when she throws shit at me.
I'll have to continue to ask myself, WWJD? What would Jane do?
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