Children

What I really want for Mother’s Day

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

You have expressed concerns that you do not have money to buy me anything for Mother’s Day, but it is not your gifts that I want. I want something much more difficult than that.

I want peace. 

I am sick of hearing your constant fighting. I don’t like how you tease each other and put each other down. I have had enough. I don’t care if you have to fake that you like each other.

I want hope.

I  want to believe you have a good future. I want you to be organized. I want you to turn in your assignments on time. I want you to enjoy life long learning. I want you to care about your grades. I don’t want you to tell me that you don’t care about school, that you will never need to use the things you are learning in real life. I don’t want you to struggle.

I want respect.

When I tell you to do something, I actually want you to do it. I don’t want you to tell me that you are going to do it later or say that you are not going to do it. I don’t want you to ask me why I am asking you to do something, I just want you to do it.

I want character.

I don’t want to hear you whine about how hard your life is because I asked you to do something that you don’t want to do. You father and I worked very hard to provide you with the ideal childhood, something neither one of us had. Your attitude towards us and our sacrifices for you is very hurtful. I don’t want to always feel angry with you.

I want responsibility. 

I don’t want to tell you repeatedly to wake up in the morning. I want you to get yourself up for school. It makes me feel stressed out when you almost miss the bus almost every morning. I don’t want to hear you complain about having a bedtime, especially since you can’t seem to get yourself out of bed.

I want faith.

I want you to grasp onto something bigger than yourself to help you through the hard times in your life. Your dad and I won’t always be here to protect you from the storms of life.

Maybe this gift will cost more than you can give me at this time. 

Some of you are further down the road than others at giving me this gift. 

Even though I really want the gift of knowing that someday you will be responsible well adjusted adults, this gift is not really for me. It’s for you.  

This roller coaster ride

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

Sometimes raising teenagers is like riding a roller coaster. There are a lot of low points followed by high points. Sometimes you are excited to be on the ride and at other times you feel like you are going to throw up. Just when you have had enough, the ride is over.

That is what life is like here every day. The last 24 hours has been one hell of a roller coaster ride. It started yesterday when Angel received a text from her ex. Or at least someone that she thought was her ex. Her ex saw her perform in the musical she was in over the weekend. He complimented her on her part, made small talk, and left. Then the next day she started getting texts. They were innocent at first with questions like where she was going to college. Then things got strange. He told her that he wanted her back. He wanted to meet for coffee. He still had feelings for her, etc… She didn’t recognize the phone number and his sister said it wasn’t his. She didn’t hear back after she told him to call her to make sure it was really him.

We started to worry that she was getting messages again from Jeremy, the guy that was previously stalking her. He would sometimes pose as a friend through text. He even hacked into her boyfriend’s Facebook account and broke up with her while pretending to be her bf. He is going to the same college as her bf which resulted in a fist fight. He threatened to rape her. At that point, Paul called him and told him never to contact Angel again. And Angel told this person where she was going to college. Uugghh!@$#

Yesterday evening she called her ex and he said that he hasn’t been texting her. He thought it may be a girl that liked him. Angel did ask in the text about the conversation that she had with her ex at the show. The person knew  about it, but it was a very general conversation. The girl went with her ex to the show. When her ex confronted this girl, she got really upset. Everyone is denying sending the texts. At this time we think it may have been someone else and not the guy we threatened to get a restraining order against. But we really don’t know. It could be anyone. 

I thought that would be it for the day until we got a knock on the door last night at 10:15 PM. Apparently, Alex’s ex-friend went for a walk last night and didn’t come home. This isn’t the same friend that ran away at the beginning of the school year. This is the long time friend that he is no longer allowed to see because his friend got expelled from school for drugs.

This morning my son got a text from the mother of his ex-friend saying that her son was still missing. She asked Alex if he knew where her son was. Alex replied that he didn’t have any contact with him for the last month since they were not allowed to talk anymore. At this point, she called my son a selfish piece of shit, etc…for no apparent reason.. She was angry and worried. Then Jake’s mom got involved. So this started a round of texting for hours while I was at work trying to actually work. Work was crazy busy. I was dealing with phone calls at work, on my cell, and texts at the same time. Eventually the boy returned home. I hope this is the last we hear from them, but I don’t think so. 

Then my son called me from school saying that he didn’t turn In an assignment. We have been monitoring his grades and missing assignments online. That is a real mess since he missed 3 days from being sick. We don’t know what has been turned in because they are still showing up as missing even if they were turned in. My son said that some were turned in but not graded yet. I love having the ability to see grades online, but it is enough to drive a parent crazy. Unupdated notifications about missing assignments and poor grades blow up our emails. Then the status is not updated for weeks sometimes. 

Then I received another call from the school today. Damn, I cringe when I see that number. Angel was calling for me to pick her up from school. She donated blood for the first time today. Afterwards she felt nauseous and dizzy. She almost passed out in class. This may have been caused by being at the bottom of the weight requirement. She didn’t feel well and couldn’t drive home. I had to pick her up from school. 

Then I heard from the school one more time. This time it was good news. Arabella was chosen to be a foreign exchange student for one week in Japan. It has been a dream of hers since I don’t know when. Last year we hosted a foreign exchange student from Japan for a week and loved it. 

That has been my 24 hour teenage roller coaster ride. I don’t particularly like roller coasters. I like to watch other people ride. 

Monday’s dirty laundry

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

I started the week off by having to buy a new washing machine. The last couple of weeks it sounded like a gun range in my house every time I threw in a load of laundry. Bang, bang, pop, pop, pop. Then this morning it almost started on fire. Good thing I didn’t throw in a load and leave for work. Stinky smoke billowed out of our utility room. I sure hope this is not an indicator of how the rest of the week will go. Lol. 

Yesterday my mom came over for supper. We spoke about my mother’s childhood years. She said that as the second oldest girl, without older brothers, it was her job to assist her dad in his work. His job was very labor intensive. She spent the summers picking cucumbers to sell to help support her family. She had to help her mother wash clothes, including cloth diapers every day, in a basin with bleach. They did not have a washer or dryer. It sure makes me appreciate my broken washer, or should I say being able to afford to buy a nice new front loader. 

I wish that my mom would write down her stories so I could understand her life more. Just like I hope someday my kids will read my writing and understand me more.
Then we talked about Matt and parenting an autistic child in the late 70’s. She said that she was thinking about writing down everything that happened to help herself heal. At times like this, I am so tempted to tell her about my blog but didn’t. She said that she is helping herself heal by helping others that are struggling. She has more compassion than anyone. She said that she wouldn’t have been able to make it through without her faith in God.

We spoke about the abuse that Matt suffered at the hands of the school. She said that she only saw Matt cry twice in his life. He cried when he spoke of what happened at school. It was absolutely barbaric. The teacher had him sit underneath her desk while she sat at her desk. If Matt touched her, she would kick him. One teacher held him face down on the floor while the other sat on his back. He couldn’t breathe. That is the story he cried about. There was a disabled child that died that year from a teacher that used the same discipline method.

We spoke about my mom’s church friends. I was not aware of this, she said one time when Matt swore in church her friend hit him. Another friend told my mom that they needed to beat it out of him. Oh, my dad did try to beat it out of him. It didn’t work. My mom spoke of when my dad kept hitting Matt over and over trying to beat it out of him. I told her that I remember that day clearly because it was my first childhood memory. I remember the screaming of my dad and Matt. I remember the plunking noise of Matt being knocked back and forth against the cupboards in the kitchen.

My mom said that Matt crawled around on the floor like an animal. He spent a lot of time screaming after he quit talking. 

Later on he became fixated on hurting little girls and I just happened to be the only little girl around. My mom said that she felt terrible that I had to suffer. She spoke of the birth of her first grandchild, my daughter Angel. She said that she was excited and filled with joy the day Angel was born. But her second feeling was horror because she knew what that might mean.

Matt did hurt Angel. What I didn’t tell you was that the two years leading up to the attack, Matt became obsessed with the thought of hurting Angel. He ruminated about it. He asked questions about what it would be like if he pulled her hair, twisted her arm, hit her, or held her head underwater when we were together. My mom and I were worried. I had to take a step back from Matt.

When Matt hurt Angel on her 4th birthday, my mom went in the other room and cried. She was so upset that she didn’t talk and was inconsolable. Luke took Matt home and the whole time it was like he was possessed. He laughed. The voices in his head were whispering over and over out loud. I almost forgot about his maniacal laughter after hurting someone. I could only describe it as evil or demonic.

My mom was at her breaking point. We had to part ways. She quit going to church for the next 3 years. She was angry at God for allowing this to happen. 

We have forgiven Matt for all of the things that happened. But it has been a long road and painful process.

Tomorrow I am going to start another autism series. I have a copy of Matt’s clinical diagnosis report from the early 80’s. I have been holding on to it for the last 20 years. I am going to share it with you along with my feelings about what was written.

The role of the dice

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

Tonight I will be out playing Bunco with the girls. It will be the first time that I went after my neighbor Sharon passed away. I will be playing with her friends. I really haven’t wanted to play the last several months without her, but haven’t been able to anyway.

If you are not familiar with Bunco, it is a dice game that is totally based on luck. The only challenging thing about it is keeping score after a drink or two. I was first invited to Bunco when Sharon was hosting it at her house and needed an extra player. That first night I won big time. Beginner’s luck they said. Month after month, Sharon called me to tell me that they needed a sub. Eventually, I was put on the permanent player list. Sharon always insisted on being the driver. She liked to smoke a cigarette on the way to calm her nerves. She rarely, if ever, had a drink. She liked to pick everyone else up. One time we ended up having more people than room in her car, but she squeezed everyone in.

I have finally reached the point of accepting that she is gone. I don’t think that she is going to drive by and wave. I don’t think she is going to come out of her house after a long winter and visit. I don’t think she is going to come over to borrow an egg and send back a batch of cookies. She is gone.

Sharon was an extreme extrovert. She loved people. She used to work at a local gas station and grew up in the area, so everyone knew her. After giving people directions to my house, several people asked me why I didn’t tell them that I lived next to Sharon. So I started telling people that I lived next to Sharon. She had 1,000 people come to her funeral. 

Sharon loved to entertain people by telling stories. My favorite story was about a bear that visited her up north. Sharon and her family owned a lot up north that they put a couple of campers on. She told me that one day a bear visited them while they were cooking out. Later that night, Sharon was having an intimate evening with her husband. The next morning her little boy asked her if the bear came back. He said that he heard her screaming like she was scared and the camper was rocking like the bear was trying to get in. I never laughed so hard.

Sharon had the world’s biggest heart. Her husband had children from a previous marriage. Although she treated his children as if they were her own, she was never able to have children. They decided to provide foster care with the intentions of adopting. Their first two foster children were abused by their previous adoptive foster parents. They were in the process of adopting these children, but it fell through and they were returned back to their previous adoptive parents. Sharon was absolutely heartbroken. 

A couple of years later, Sharon became the foster parent of a baby that she later adopted. She eventually adopted his younger sister when she was 2. The second child was more of a challenge because she was in foster care for the first two years of her life. She decided to make it an open adoption. The birth mother was on drugs and had all of her children taken away right after birth. She just wasn’t mother material. But Sharon kept her land line so the birth mother could call her anytime day or night. She was very loving and not at all judgmental. She even loved my children like they were her own. 

Sharon always called me at work if a strange vehicle was in my yard. She was always keeping an eye on the neighborhood.

The last couple of times that I saw Sharon, she was in bad health. She had a couple of very serious health conditions. Her husband quit his job to become self-employed and they didn’t have health insurance. Previously, her husband was on the road a lot. Sharon was afraid to be home alone without her husband. At night, she slept with every light on in the house. Once in the middle of the night, there was a motorist that broke down near us. She went to Sharon’s house for help because all of the lights were on. Sharon was terrified when her doorbell rang in the middle of the night. So her husband decided to start his own business to be home more.

The last couple of months, Sharon complained about not feeling well. She said that after the kids left for school, she would go back to bed until the afternoon. She couldn’t afford to get the treatment she needed but always told me that she would go to the doctor soon. Then she came down with a simple case of pneumonia. She very unexpectedly died at the age of 45 leaving behind two grade school aged children.

So tonight I will be hanging out with her friends. I wish I didn’t have to go without her.

Life times 

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

I had every intention of writing yesterday, but things don’t always go as planned. After today, I am done with my spring cleaning. Now we are just waiting for spring. Usually in the middle of April, spring turns on like a light switch. I plan ahead to have my spring cleaning over and done with before it is nice out. 

It has been cold this past week with more days of snow than without. Some patchy snow remains on the ground with another inch of snow and sleet expected this afternoon. Friday afternoon thick snow flakes fell to the ground. Please don’t tell anyone else in WI that I am saying this, but it was very beautiful. Saturday morning the sun glistened making the snow sparkle like diamonds. But now it is bleak and cloudy. All of the babies cried in church. They seemed to take all of our repressed feelings towards winter and let them spring forth like the wailing of the wind that cries out to us today.

Yesterday, I went to the bowels of Hades into our little crawl space to peer into all of the bins and boxes. I was hoping to find the letters my mom wrote to me the summer that she spent out of state in the hospital with Matt. I haven’t been able to find them anywhere. I’m afraid that I may have accidently thrown them out with all of the high school notes that I found. My old school texting! LOL. You know, the notes that I didn’t want my parents to find and now I wouldn’t want my kids to find. LOL. It makes me sad, but maybe they will turn up somewhere yet.  

Also, I was looking for pictures to display for my daughter’s high school graduation next month. Since more than half of my childrens childhood was before the digital camera era, I have 4 big bins and multiple boxes of unorganized pictures and memorabilia. I started to feel stressed that my display of her life would suck. I hate to be unorganized with this since organization is a strength of mine. So I decided to make a display of pictures from all of the shows my daughter performed in along with a couple baby pictures. Then next winter, instead of working puzzles, I am planning on going through all of the pictures. I am going to work with my mom to take all of the old family pictures and back them up online. After my kids are settled as adults, I am going to gift them with a bin of their most precious childhood moments. 

Yesterday we had my parents and Matt over for supper last minute. We spent several hours watching the old family videos that we had uploaded to a hard drive. It was so strange seeing my brothers, cousins, and myself as young children. Then we watched my kids as young children. It was so strange seeing the progression of time all in one day. Time sure flies. Enjoy every moment while you can.

Mouse house

/ Outrunning my demons / 5 Comments

I remember as a little girl whenever someone in my family got a big box, they brought it over for me to play in. My grandma called the box a mouse house. I colored my little house and grandma would cut holes in the box to make windows and doors to peak out of. For a brief period in my adult life, I had a real life mouse house.

Last month my son participated in his first science fair at the high school. He presented a project on the different types of bombs. You might think that this would be an interesting project, but it wasn’t. I mean, he couldn’t make a project and test it at the school like other kids did. His project consisted of magazine picture cut outs and a lot of writing. Other kids had projects that included experiments with sound waves, catapults, ice cream made out of different ingredients, the effects of caffeine on sport performance, etc..

On a side note, my personal favorite this year was the one that tested the effectiveness of acid reflux products on reducing stomach acid. The girl said that the least effective products were harmless and that the most effective were harmful. She said that the most effective products cause organ failure. She said that if you suffer from acid reflux, it will kill you. Great! Another thing to worry about. I never imagined that my stomach acid would get me in the end. Lol. I really hope that girl doesn’t decide to become a doctor.

The science fair brought back memories of Angel’s first couple of science fairs. For her second year, Angel did an experiment on 3 white mice. She started to bring her mice home on weekends. She didn’t want them to end up being snake food after the science fair. She wanted to keep them as pets.

Now the science classroom housed the mice and one more animal, a 3 legged cat. One weekend the door to the room that contained the mice was not shut tight. By Monday, there was an all out mouse massacre. Angel’s mice were the only mice to survive for the science fair since she brought them home. After the science fair was over, she convinced us to keep the mice. She was going to keep them in a cage in her room so our cat would not get them.

I would like to say that she never had a mouse in her room before, but she did. A few years previous there was a tear on the bottom of our screen door. When another dog came into our yard, our dog totally tore through our screen door leaving a big gap. If we left the sliding door open, we had ourselves a redneck pet door. It worked well for awhile with the pets letting themselves in and out as they pleased, until the day our cat brought a live mouse in our house. We screamed as our cat ran with the mouse into the girls bedroom and dropped it there. Eventually Paul was able to catch and release the mouse outdoors. That was the end of our pet door.

Right after Angel brought the mice home, two of them died. The last mouse lived a couple more months. I called him Roady which was short for rodent. He didn’t care for me that much at first. He bit my finger a couple of times until I decided that I was going to try to win him over. I started hand feeding him wax worms and other little delicacies to the point that he was happy to see me.

We ended up buying him a little hamster ball so he could explore the house. He did escape his cage a couple of times. We found him bundled up in Angel’s basket of yarn. He liked the yarn so much that we put it near his cage so he could pull it in and make a little nest. That little mouse made a sweet pet. It really changed my viewpoint on the less desirable creatures of creation.

Just wait…

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

When my family got together a couple of weeks ago to bowl, I requested the song Stressed Out by Twenty One Pilots. Of course, they never did end up playing the song before we left which seriously caused me to be a little stressed out. LOL. My baby brother Luke gave me some crap about my song selection. He chided me a bit about being stressed out all of the time. He told me that being stressed out was a choice.

This is where I retorted back, “Just wait!” You know that little comment that other people make when they are a little further down the road in life. Like the time that I thought that my toddler wouldn’t throw a temper tantrum in the grocery store over candy like my friend’s child did. Ha, ha just wait your days are coming she said. They sure did. So I am bottling up Luke’s comment to give back to him when he has teenagers. You know, when I am an empty nester and he is in the throes of raising teens. Just wait!

Yes, my life is stressful! I don’t seem to have a lot of control over that right now. I am trying to run a business with my husband. I am raising three teens and trying to be an involved parent. In my spare time I am training for a marathon. Oh, not to mention trying to write a blog everyday. All while maintaining a clean house, staying up on all of the laundry, and trying to keep some shred of sanity.

Luke was a very difficult child. His role as the youngest sibling was to make sure that my autistic brother Matt did not get all of the attention. And he entertained us! When Luke was a little boy, he got angry at my dad and cut the live wire to my dad’s electronics almost electrocuting himself. He also kicked a big hole in the wall. When he was a teenager, he played a round of co-ed strip volleyball in the front yard. But my personal favorite was when he rolled around in the front yard wrestling with my dad for the car keys. My dad had chest pains and spent the evening in the ER. It all ended well. My brother was a wild child. You wouldn’t know that by looking at him now. He is very serious. The running joke is that he became serious and I became wild. But we won’t talk about that now!

My mother did her due diligence to make sure that she prayed that my brother has children just like him. Now he has two daughters. The oldest is serious like he is now. But the youngest is quite the firecracker. She is a wild child. She screams when she doesn’t get her way. She has a very impressive high pitched scream. She tells it like it is without a filter. She is bossy. She loves to be the center of attention. She makes us laugh.  And she just made a list of four boys that she is going to kiss when she is old enough. I just can’t wait.

So someday when I am living the life of leisure and my brother has teenagers I am going to tell him that he is in control of how much stress he is under. Just wait!!

 

Spring feverish

/ Outrunning my demons / 3 Comments

I feel crabby. 

Work was busy and my employee didn’t come in today, or yesterday for that matter. Her sister’s dog died over the weekend. So I stayed at the office a couple of hours later than usual to catch up. Add in a staff meeting, fitting in an hour workout, finding time to vote, and having a sick child makes me feel crabby. Accuse me of having a lack of sympathy, but I could have used an extra hand at work today.  

Business owners have to drag their ass to work when they have a sick kid, when they are sick, after having a baby, after having major surgery, after a death in the family, etc.. I check my work on the weekends, on vacation, heck even right now. Sometimes I am tempted to check my emails during church. I know, what a sinner!
This summer after Angel graduates she will be working for us until she goes to college. I plan on teaching her everything I know. She has a great mind for business. Alex is great with computers. Arabella is incredible at sales.  My future employees live in my own house. We’ll see. 

Some days work is slow and at others times I can barely keep up. When work is busy, there are tons of customer service emails and calls. I am great at what I do, but sometimes I get frustrated. Sometimes I have to deal with difficult customers that are upset. I am good at diffusing angry people on the phone. It just seems like I get nothing done. Yes, we suck, now can I please get back to work?? LOL. Or my favorite is when people ask when the work will be done but I can’t get to it because I am answering tons of questions about when it will be ready. We have great employees and clients, but some days when work gets bottle necked I feel stressed. 

I printed out my son’s assignments from school before I left work, then forgot them there. I realized this after I took my shoes and jacket off. Then I sped back to the office in the blowing snow to pick it up. Yes, it is cold and snowy again. A couple of weeks ago we had two days of sun. I had forgotten how bright it was. Since then it has been cold, rainy, or snowing. Thankfully, we have an office close to our house.

I think I have a case of spring fever! This is always the hardest time of year. It sure is a lot easier being at work when I don’t want to be outside though. 

Training like a warrior (oops, I meant worrier)

/ Outrunning my demons / 8 Comments

The dishes are done. The laundry is folded and put away. I just put on my pajamas and am sitting on the recliner with my feet up. Lazy? No way, I took a half a day off of work to run 20 miles. I did it and it went better than I expected. The last couple of miles were dreadful, but I did it. I admit I was a little worried. This has been the most miles that I ran since the marathon last summer. My endurance hasn’t been what I wanted it to be lately. I almost feel out of shape. Treadmill running is tough, but I am satisfied with how I did today. I was wondering if I don’t have what it takes anymore. I am not getting any younger.

I thought that after I was done running that I would feel better, but I don’t. I feel edgy, worried. I feel like the pattern is off. Some detail is out of place, but I can’t figure out what is wrong. I feel like something bad is going to happen. Call me crazy, you wouldn’t be the first. Maybe it is the rain. It hasn’t stopped raining in days. 

Or maybe I feel a little self-conscious about opening up to you. Things are getting a little too personal and I want to step back. I want to pull away. You are starting to find out who I am. Maybe you won’t like the real me. Sure, I can tell you a lot of good things about me. I could tell you stories of how I like to save birds or give people their lost wallets back. But what about the bad? I feel vulnerable and afraid. I am not leaving, but sometimes I want to.

Or maybe I feel edgy because this morning I got a text from another mom warning me of a new potential threat. We just severed Alex’s ties to his druggie friend last week just to have another come walking through the door. If my son wants to do drugs, there is nothing that I can do to stop him. I wish I had full control. I like to play God instead of trusting Him. 

I need to relax…Grrrr.. Tomorrow I made lunch plans with my mom. Then we are going to get a massage. I thought that it would be great to get my long run in today so the massage tomorrow will feel even better. I am not in a lot of physical pain, just the normal aches and pains of a long run. No knee pain which is great. Then tomorrow night I will be watching Angel perform in her last high school play. I am so proud of her, I always have been. She got straight A’s this quarter. Paul and I always told the kids that if they got straight A’s we would take them out to a restaurant of their choice. It has been close, but this is the first time it happened. Finally some good news!!

P.S. I decided to make some split pea soup with the leftover Easter ham. I put yellow split peas, carrots, and potatoes in the slow cooker all day along with the rest of the ham on the bone. It was the first time I made it in the slow cooker. It was the best batch that I have ever made. It was more soupy than thick. Yum. I didn’t eat much all day with running so I had two bowls. I hope I don’t regret that tomorrow. 

Act your age! Wait, how old are you anyway?

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment

It has come to my attention lately that strangers think my children are all the same age.

We recently got dental insurance for the first time. As you can imagine, it is very expensive to pay out of pocket for the dental needs of a family of 5. Especially last year with a crown and wisdom teeth extraction. The change required us to go to a different dentist.

When it came time for us to go in for our first appointment, my daughter Angel who is 17 was taken to the pediatric section in error. They told her to look at the silly animal characters on the wall if she was feeling frightened. They spoke to her in a high pitch sing song voice that you would use with small children. My 12 year old daughter was taken into the adult section.

I understand your confusion, I really do. Even Angel’s boyfriend calls her the 12 year old granny. Since she got her hair cut with bangs, she looks like she is 12. Plus, she doesn’t look like the stereotypical theater person. She never dyed her hair, wears normal (if not boring) clothes, and hardly ever wears makeup. Her boyfriend calls her granny because she is always knitting or crocheting. She is almost an adult but looks like a child. She looks almost exactly like I did as a child and has my body shape. She also has a similar personality to mine.

My son Alex is 15. He looks his age. For the longest time, he was a small and thin boy until finally he grew. Now he towers over me, muscular and lean. His personality is also similar to mine. He looks like his dad and has my body shape.

Arabella is 12, but she looks like an adult. Her personality is very different from mine. She looks like her dad and has his body type. This past Christmas, Arabella became the topic of conversation with my aunt through marriage. She loudly said, “I see that Arabella has joined the club.” “What club??” “Oh, that is right, you wouldn’t know. Did you ever consider breast reduction surgery?” She is 12. “She is going to have back issues.” She is 12!! She looks so much older that other people (myself included) expect her to act like she is an adult. It doesn’t seem right or fair. 

And so it is. Two weeks ago we were all back at the dentist’s office. After I had my fillings worked on, I came out to the waiting area to find Alex and Arabella arguing. I told them that if I heard one more word from them that I would take away their electronics. Alex quit the fight, but Arabella argued on. I told her to hand over her electronics. She come over to me and said, “Yeah, try to make me.” She has over 30 lbs on me. She towered over me while I cowered underneath her. This has made parenting challenging for me. Then Alex stood behind me and demanded she hand over her electronics. This started sibling battle number 2. Even though Alex tried to back me up, I told him that this was between Arabella and I.

I have been parenting for a long time now. I have noticed three stages of struggle with all of my children. The first stage everyone has heard of, the terrible two’s. This is their first struggle for independence. The second stage happened around 5 years, right around the time that they went to school full-time. This is another time of asserting independence. The third stage is during preadolescence, the middle school age.

The middle school years have been fraught with the biggest struggle for independence that I have seen so far, plus add in new hormonal changes. All of my kids were moody, argumentative, easily irritated, knew everything, and would often talk back. At this age, the kids treated us like we were totally stupid. Paul and I would walk around the house with our hands in the air saying “what do I know?” Anything that we would say they would argue against. I think that this is very normal although we were shocked by it with our first child. They are starting to find their identity and make their way in life without us.

The teenage years are wonderful. I am not kidding, there is hope. For the first time, you will be able to reason with your child like an adult. For example, a few months back Angel wanted to go on a weekend skiing trip with her boyfriend. A group of college students were going to rent a lodge for the weekend without parents around. But my daughter was 17. I told her that she wasn’t going to be allowed to go. She was disappointed and sad. Later, after the initial anger wore off, my daughter came up to me and told me that she understood my decision and the reasoning behind it. I was floored. It was so hard to not let her go when she agreed with me. If she would have thrown a big fit and screamed how much she hated me, I sure would have had an easier time saying no.

I think that by the time my youngest child leaves, I’ll finally have this parenting thing figured out. Until then, don’t give my 17 year old daughter a kids menu. And don’t even think about offering my 12 year old a drink from the bar.