Saturday, July 24, 2010

Was wondering if they make a medicine that helps you sleep through your childs teenage years?

My daughters are eight and six according to their birth certificates. Ask them how old they are and sometimes the answer varies. My eight year old "feels" fifteen alot and my six year old talks like she is going on twenty. I always dreamed of having all boys girls were never in my plan. I know what my sister and I were like and what we put our parents through. Karma seems to be passing by my house more and more as they get older. My youngest is so calculated almost like she is always planning something. Since the day she was born I would joke how she had mob connections. With each passing year that idea solidifies. One day Big Sal will be at my front door asking to speak with her.
I treat them sort of like twins in a way. I always dress them in similar outfits. I just yell "GIRLS" when I need them for something. As they get older though I am noticing that they have two opposite personalities. My oldest is full of anxiety. She must know every detail of the day before it starts. If something gets changed like a time we need to leave or something that needs cleaned it throws her into a full blown anxiety attack. It is as if at eight she is carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. We have helped battle these meltdown with the help of list and not telling her of any future plans later in the week. Her social life is exploding. It seems like every weekend she has a friends house to go to. Her appearance has become important to her. She has a very funky ecclectic taste when it comes to clothes and accessories. Mismatched outfits, two different earrings, scarves, not to mention her hair and nails. I have colored her hair with several colors of manic panic and recently we cut it a little shorter than normal. Now she styles her hair so that it hangs over her one eye. (Her younger sister calls that the one eye.) I am not so scared of her becoming a teenager. I imagine she will be the girly girl that happens to dress like a punk rock star of some sort. As for my other daughter I may need to be put in a coma.
A few nights ago my oldest was of course staying at her friends house so as a special treat to my younger daughter I let her stay up late with my boyfriend and I. She must have imagined a fun filled night of playing on the wii. Probably because we always joke that the adults stay up late every night and play it without the kids to kill us. After convincing her that we did not play the wii on thursdays she settled for sitting on the back porch and hanging out while we talked about our days. That was short lived when she told the both of us to stop talking it was her turn. Her stories started out with innocent talks about what was on the disney channel and then it quickly turned. It gave me a glimpse of what life was going to be like in a few year. It was hard to keep a straight face. She began to tell me how a boy named evan in her class said he was in love with her. They are in Kindergarten. I threatened to find evan and beat him down. She wasn't having that. She then defended the story with the fact that she did not love him. I suppose that makes things a little better. The conversation eventually lead to when she was 16 she would have a car and I was going to get it for her. I declined that idea and told her to get a job. She bypassed that idea and went on to tell me of all the reasons why she may be late for her curfew. Yes she already had excuses such as car trouble and her watch broke. What will she come up with in the next ten years in her list of excuses? I don't want to think about it. I just want to find a medicine that will allow me to sleep through the teenage years.

1 comment:

  1. This is exactly how I picture it too. I don't know how anyone raises teenagers. Let's just hope that the little one is a good tattletale?

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