The following is written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Jr. High Picture Day happened last week,
and might I say very sarcastically,
“What a time to be alive!”
These are the times that having four daughters really try to take you down.
The crying.
The fighting over bathroom space.
The sighs, and the door slamming.
I really should have allowed at least another 20 minutes just for the lumpy hair drama alone.
My 12 year old daughter, Chloe, ended up choosing for her pictures the very shirt she had lost her MIND over on the first day of school.
It was too puffy.
It was too pleated.
It frankly
existed too much.
She sobbed that it made her look like she was pregnant.
She flicked at it violently and she cried.
I had just bought her that shirt the day before when she had emerged from the dressing room of Target grinning like she was one of the Royals.
She had knighted it the very best shirt.
I got a wake-up call that and learned the preteen creed:
“That was then, and this is now.”
I had only barely recovered from the dizziness of buying that shirt then having it woefully rejected not 20 hours later, when,
in a move to spin me even further and faster,
that kid chose it for her flipping picture day.
Not good enough for first impression.
Chosen for a lasting one.
I don’t even know anymore.
If only any child of mine would ever listen to me.
If only they would believe me about what hairstyle might look good,
and then would just let me do it.
After all, I am a current kind of mom.
I know what “Yeet” means.
I have a nose hoop.
“Can’t nobody tell me nothin.”
If only I didn’t have to stand there with a hot flat iron stating the fact that
“many people actually think I’m good at doing hair, you know.”
If only they’d believe me that that shirt looks fine,
or be assured that yes,
that outfit actually looks really great on them.
I don’t want them to fail.
I don’t want them to stink.
I don’t want them to erupt.
I don’t want them to flail in that Middle School
kind of way.
I don’t want them to earn some weird nickname.
I limit packing tuna and egg-salad for them just so they aren’t known as the kid with the real stinky lunch.
When one kid’s hair looks oily,
I tell them all that it is shower night to avoid embarrassment.
I said their names out loud at least 20 times each to make sure that they would sound OK when roll was called.
I remember one girl in elementary school that used to eat her boogers when she thought no one was looking.
I’ve run into her at 40 years old,
and that’s still all I can think of.
I don’t want that for their life.
I can only pray that one day they realize how hard I fought to snatch them from the dark underbelly of preteen awkwardness.
Lord knows no one ever snatched me.
Instead, I sat in a hair salon with perm solution soaking into a mullet that I didn’t choose,
and also into my soul.
While my friends were getting desired spirals,
I was sitting in a salon thumbing through
Horse and Rider magazine,
40 years younger than any other person there.
No one told me about what was trending.
No one gave a loving heads-up.
I hope that one day my girls remember that I tried to teach them how to wash their face to avoid breakouts.
I hope they remember that I tried to keep their teeth from looking weirdly fuzzy,
and that I fought to spare them all of those scalp flakes.
Alas,
we parents of preteens are bound to the burden of trying to let them be free to “figure it out on their own.”
Say too much and you hurt them.
Say too much and they will more quickly be gone, and oh,
they are going fast enough…
So, we are bound to smell the smells.
We are bound to absorb the eye-rolls.
We are bound to feel like we’re often the enemy,
because at this age, they are more fragile inside.
I tried changing this course with my oldest.
I really did,
and, thank God, she sees all my efforts now.
She sees all the ways I tried to lay myself down and be a road-block to the awkwardness that she barreled towards.
She sees that I threw my body as a speed-bump.
She was just determined to ruin her shocks.
Now she texts me photos at least every two weeks of herself in Jr. High with captions like “Why did this happen?” or
“How could you let this occur?”
Just today, as a matter of fact,
I received such a text.
My only answer to her is
“I tried to tell you, Honey.”
I tried,
and bless me,
I am trying still.
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.
