Meanie

                                        
My oldest daughter is making me crazy. She is going to be 10 soon but she thinks that she is 20. She has been so moody and unpredictable lately. It's making me crazy. She's mean. I let her sleep over a friend's house for 2 nights in a row. Which I think is a long time. I called her last night to check up on her and she asked if she could stay for a 3rd night. Ummm....no. I love you and I want to see you and 2 days is more than enough time. I told her no. "Good night. I love you." I heard her speak angrily on the other end of the phone. "Bye, mom." Click. Well, okay. I love you too...it was good talking to you.

My husband and I both had off today and we were going to relax and have a fun time together. We all went to pick up my oldest and we planned to have lunch together. I walked in and she waved to me. "Hey, mom." Hadn't seen me for 2 days but not a hug or a smile or anything. Whatever. We got into the car and that's when the bitch fest started. "I wanted to stay. I could have gone crabbing on Friday...blah, blah, blah, blah, blah...." Oh my God. Make it stop. I couldn't take it.

We went out for lunch and she didn't let me sit next to her and when we got home she went up to her room to work on a craft. She's rude. I laid down and took a nap. It was glorious.

At dinner, we all sat together and chatted. I suggested that we have family game night. We like games and I thought it would be nice for us to be all together and laugh and play. My oldest had this reaction at the mere suggestion:

"No way. They are called BORED games for a reason." She has a smart mouth. "Plus I don't like you." I was exasperated and finally said, "Enough. I am tired of you being rude and disrespectful. What did I do?" She looked me in the eye and said while counting on her fingers, "One, you always want to hug me and I hate it and I never want to hug you. Two, you treat me like a baby and I can do many things myself. Three, you always act weird like papa. That's why I don't like you. Can I be excused?" Then she got up from the table. My child, who I have invested so much time, energy, love and attention just told me she doesn't like me and doesn't want to hug me. My heart hurt. 

We did force her to participate in family night. We were playing fine and she finally started to warm up and act like normal. Everything was good until our 7 year old decided that all of us were working against her. She threw her cards, screamed "THIS IS CRAP" and then stomped off. My 9 year old said, "Good. I didn't want to do this anyway." I had enough, "Good - go to your room." She gladly got up and left. My husband and I sat alone at the table. We could hear our youngest upstairs crying and carrying on. "Wanna play Trivial Pursuit?" So we did, we played while the kids avoided us. So many years we had no kid free evenings and it turns out that it's completely overrated. I guess we'll try again tomorrow....