Here's a riddle for you. What can experience the entire spectrum of emotions in 0-60 seconds, is capable of performing well in school but can't keep clothes in a drawer, and never remembers to put on deodorant? A preteen!
I'm going to get this out of the way really quickly. I love my kids. My oldest child is lovely and sweet, she's fun and has a heart of gold. I think she's fabulous and some day when she is the Secretary of State I am going to get a Congressional Medal of Honor for raising her. I think sometimes as moms we have the guilt if we get real about our kids. We always have to use the qualifier. But I love them! They're great! Can you hear the fake voice? See the strained smile? The bags under your eyes because you haven't slept in 12 years? Yep. My oldest daughter is 11 and I'm here to tell you that girl is a hot mess. And it is all extremely age appropriate. At least that's what I tell myself. The tween years have been kind of sneaking up on us but 11 has hit hard and fast. The emotional roller coaster that child has hopped on is giving all of us whip lash. I don't like roller coasters. Can I get off?
I feel completely inadequate as her mother, mostly because I find myself so annoyed with her 80% of the time. This just adds another layer to the pile of mom guilt. If I were a good mom would I be annoyed with my own child? My flesh and blood? Aren't I supposed to think my kids walk on water, spit rainbows and bubbles? If this is the case just check me in to the crappy mom category. Now don't get me wrong, I am proud of them and really they are good kids. But truly they are a genetic combination of me and my spouse and neither of us are perfect people (shocking). They are a product of their home environment which I am the first to admit is lacking. And they came to our family with their own quirks, personalities, weirdness and tendencies. As their mom I feel a tremendous amount of pressure to gather that whole mess up and to do my best to shape it in to something resembling a productive functioning human being.
I was asked a while back if the phase of life I am currently in was harder or easier than the baby/toddler phase. The woman that asked me this question is living the baby/toddler life hard. She's elbow deep in diapers, nighttime feedings, messy dinner times and 3 year old's that won't share. I think she was looking for a light at the end of the tunnel. She wanted me to be like oh yeah way easier, just hang in there once they go to kindergarten your life will turn around. I wanted to be a good friend and lie, I really did. And you know in some ways it does get easier. It's really nice when people can take care of their own bathroom needs (mostly) and can get themselves a snack, sleep through most nights. The physical demands of parenting go way down. But the emotional and psychological ones go way way up. Now nothing I say is ever correct, I am the best mom ever and also the worst mom ever. No one gets her like I do, also I don't understand her at all. She needs a bra, today, right now, even though breast buds are truly not even a reality. Even if you squint and tilt your head to the side, can't see them. Her younger siblings were born to ruin her life, and it's my fault for birthing them. She wants to stay up later than the little kids even though the next day she's weepy and exhausted. I really feel for her. She's stuck at a horrible in between stage. Not little but not big. I also really feel for me. I'm the one that has to listen to her.
This last weekend I took her on a little Girl's Trip with a couple of her friends and their moms plus my mom, down to San Antonio to hit up a Harry Potter Arts and Craft Bizarre. I hoped that it would reconnect us. That maybe I wouldn't find her quite so irritating if we were doing something fun together. It was a great trip. We had a total blast! We ate too much food and spent too much money and stayed up way too late. But she was still irritating. The constant talking about nothing at all eventually made my ears bleed. I'm coming to accept that this is my life now. Pretty much forever. The tween years will never end. Logically I know it's not true. And those of you with older children are sympathetically shaking your heads thinking, no someday you'll miss this. Maybe that is the case. But right now it's all I can do to get through the day not rolling my eyes in to the back of my head.
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