When it comes to the most intense parenting years,
I would say I am in the thick of them.
This is, of course, not including parenting age 3,
which is in its own “war crime” category.
Like the Voldemort of ages: We try not to speak of it.
Right now I have two teenagers that are nearly close enough in age to be twins.
As an added twist, (Just for laughs. Love: God)
they are the two most opposite girls that could ever exist.
So, just when I think I have learned some hack for raising teenage daughters because I have broken through with one, the other one will come along to make it clear that my methods, as far as they are concerned, are total crap.
The oldest of the two was born so dramatic, she practically needs a fainting couch to wheel around.
Her sister is so smart that she skipped third grade, and instead, seemingly just took the bar exam.
It makes it very hard to argue your point as a parent when your child actually IS smarter than you are.
Not thinking well enough into the future when those two were young,
I went and got pregnant again;
This time, with yet another daughter that, because of my poor planning, would enter her preteen years just as soon as the two teens began re-humanizing again.
All along, I have thought I would be safer from pre-teen dramatics with her, because this one was different from most.
Whereas her sisters were fighting over Barbies and dress-up dresses,
this one only needed a soccer jersey, some shorts, a ball, and to be left alone.
Instead of dance, this one took martial arts, and made her instructor tap out when sparring her once because she had wrapped herself so tightly around his neck like a clamp that his lips were the color of his belt.
I remember sitting on the sidelines then, watching him catch his breath, knowing this one would be different wherever she goes.
As boys would act like fools eyeballing the older two, she would follow behind rolling hers and shooting threatening glances, because she was watching them, was martial arts trained, and she wanted them to know.
It has always been her mission to dominate the boys, both at school and out on the field.
I remember her coming home from second grade once, telling me that a boy was mad at her for breaking his long-standing record at Gaga Ball.
“Oh, yeah?” I started. “Well, that’s OK. It’s not like he can win every ti…”
“Not just once,” she interrupted.
“I beat him like five times. He was crying when he went home.”
This is the girl who, on the last day of that grade, noticed kids screaming, grossed out by the sight of a dead gopher in the grass outside, and rather than join them in their disgust, she saw , instead, as an opportunity to take the throne, and marched into the grass, took that thing by its long, nasty teeth, and just stood there making unbroken eye contact, and holding it up high.
She has always had the reputation of a warrior princess: Mud on her face, fire in her eyes,
And I tell you this so you will know why I have been lulled into false security, and thought that, as far as pre-teen hormone swings go, with her, I was going to be fine.
Friends,
It is not fine.
*Red alert**Red alert*
Do you know what it is like when a warrior doesn’t know why they’re crying?!
Not only are they confused, but now they’re MAD they’re confused.
I thought I’d seen storming off before, but that old storming?
It was feather light.
But even though I’ve been watching this sleeper wave take beachgoers out for a few months,
I still wasn’t expecting this newest twist, when the other day at the end of her indoor soccer game, she came rushing over to the bleachers positively twitterpated.
I furrowed my brow trying to figure out why she was squirming like that.
Was she sick? Was she injured? What was she about to unleash?
I’d seen the karate instructor.
I didn’t want to end up like that.
I was not expecting her to turn around and hiss-whisper, “He’s here.”
Who is here?
I looked all around,
and that is when I saw where her gaze was fighting not to drift:
Towards a boy who she plays soccer with at the park here in town.
I don’t know if it was that I never thought she would like a boy, because I more pictured her WEARING them,
but I just never pictured this body language I was seeing coming from the body of this particular kid.
But, I have seen it before in her sisters a thousand times before.
It’s just that normally, while they are doing it, she is trailing behind, rolling her eyes, and making fun of them to me for it like she and I are in a secret club.
Before I could even ask her about the boy, she had jumped up and disappeared into the gym hall.
When she returned, I knew what she had been doing right away,
as that is when I noticed her hair had been wetted down.
As the boy passed, he smiled kindly and waved, and called out a hello and HER NAME at her.
She whipped her head to look at me, with her nostrils doing a thing I am familiar with because I was her age once.
My Braveheart daughter may have her fist in the air, and some paint on her face,
but what that daughter also has is HER FIRST CRUSH.
So, now I will ride alongside her, as I do, making sure she doesn’t take some poor boy’s scalp.
I will remind her of who she is, and what she came for, and when that sleeper wave of emotions takes her under, as I have done for those before her, I will be there to help pull her back out.
For I am a warrior, too.
I see you, my old foe.
So, we meet again.
I thought I was done, but my sword is at the ready.
I know your hiding spots, and all your old tricks.
You may be dressed less conspicuously this time around, but I see you, Preteen Emotions, and I am heading back in.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
