Sunday, March 22, 2015

Growing Pains

                                 
Things have been so busy around here. Being busy is my drug. It's extremely unhealthy. I really should seek therapy for it. I need so much therapy. The irony of the whole thing is that I would need a therapist to come to my house to fit my schedule. We could conference call between gymnastics classes. I am so f'ed.

I am having a hard time with my oldest daughter right now. She is so moody. I hate it. She vacillates between thinking I am her favorite person in the universe and thinking I'm the most embarrassing person that ever existed. Her opinion of me (of us) can change from minute to minute. She will be eleven in just a few short months and she is very mature for her age. It's such a weird time because it's like she wants to be five and fifteen all at once.

Sometimes she craves my attention so much. She will hug me, want me to lay with her, still want to blow bubbles and jump rope and the next minute she is sitting on the couch with headphones in her ears, scowling and rolling her eyes when I try to talk to her. Some days she acts like I don't know anything and like I am the oldest person on the planet. God forbid I try to listen to a song on the radio when she is in the car. "Mom! The nineties are over. You need to get over it."
                                     Eye Roll Bitch Please animated GIF
It's the hormones. It has to be. There is no other rational explanation. Now I understand how my husband feels all the time. I really feel sorry for him. When there are three women in this house he is going to be in hell.
                                                
I get it. I don't even hold it against her. It's a developmentally normal thing. I remember being 12 years old and sitting next to my parents and feeling like there were oceans inbetween us. I just want it to be different for us.

I confronted her about it this evening. She shrugged, "Don't take it personally. I only don't like you when I am in a bad mood and when I am tired. Also, when I am hangry and when you stalk me." haha. She calls me a stalker because I ask her a million questions about everything and because when I kiss her at night I just stare at her for a while. "Mom, stop doing that! You creep me out!" I'll say, "You are just so beautiful and I made you and I love you." She pulls the blanket over her head and says, "You're such a stalker."

If she only knew. I will be a stalker. On her first date I will be two rows behind her in the movie theater wearing a hat and sunglasses. I will be crouching in the bushes with binoculars. I will be following three cars behind her to make sure she is going where she said she was. Every breath she takes, every move she makes, I'll be watching....

It's just a hard transitional time. It's not just because our kids are growing up too fast. My husband and I are growing up too. I feel like just a second ago we were these carefree teenagers, making out in the back of movie theaters and driving to the Jersey shore with the windows down and then we woke up one day and we were 30 pounds heavier, with laugh lines around our eyes and kisses that are interrupted by a preteen who is telling us to get a room and a third grader yelling at us to help her find her shoes.

What happened to us? I don't know how we have gotten here. All the years inbetween seem like a blur. I need time to slow down a little bit. I hate it.





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