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?
