My daughter, Paige, stayed home from school one day last week with some mystery illness that really seemed more like it had been an excuse to not have to run the mile in P.E.
However, as I, myself, was known to have once tried sticking a mercury thermometer in a cup of hot tea to fake a fever, thereby exploding the thermometer and leading to me having to explain how that had happened to my mother,
I let her have a pass for this one day.
Mental Health Days are a thing.
The next morning, when I took her back to school, I produced a note I had written and tried to hand it to her to have her take it into the office to clear the absence.
You would have thought I was handing her something contaminated with The Plague.
If you have ever had a middle-schooler whom you are trying to have do a business-type task for you, you know exactly how it can be.
I had to do literal YEARS of training and exposure therapy for my oldest (who is an introvert) to get her to the point of being able to make a phone call.
I don’t think she scheduled any appointments for herself without me there in the background, coaching her to breathe until she was at least 23.
I would have had an easier time that morning yanking a donkey across the entire length of the Great Wall of China than I did getting her to even TOUCH that note.
I held it out to her, and by the way she moved, she could have given Evander Holyfield a tutorial on how to bob and weave.
HER: *Horror* “What is THAT?!”
ME: “It’s your note to clear your absence.
I need you to take it into the office for me.”
HER: “But, why does it even MATTER?”
ME: *reaching closer to try to touch her with it* “Paige. TAKE THE NOTE.”
HER: “Mom! No! I don’t want to! They don’t need it! It’s FINE.
They’ll know I’m back when they see me!”
I reached over and over, trying to shove the note at her as if by touching her with it it would somehow transfer itself into her possession.
She avoided it like it would catch her skin on fire.
Other kids were staring.
I’m sure it wasn’t because they were questioning her, though. They stick together.
I am positive they were looking on in mutual disgust, all thinking, “Ew. Her mom is trying to make her DO something?!”
After several minutes of back-and-forth, she finally took the note, but not without a look that said she wished she could have turned me into a pillar of salt, and a pair of dramatically slumped shoulders.
No doubt, she was plotting how to contact the courts for emancipation or something.
I just sat in my car, shaking my head at her, and thinking about how this has been the case for three of my four daughters:
When asked to do a formal task at this age, they have all acted as if they would rather go towards the light.
As if there is nowhere on earth they would like to be less than doing that one simple thing for me.
They have draped themselves across furniture and told me they’re “sore.”
They have asked why their sister can’t be the one to do the thing.
My oldest once responded to being asked to take something upstairs by saying she had already been “Thirteen Years a Slave.”
We make life so hard on them, you know?
They just want to eat ungodly amounts of Uncrustables and play their video games in peace.
Paige already had to carry her bowl to the sink that one time.
Now I wanted her to take a NOTE IN and SPEAK?!
What is she? Indentured?!
Did I have her just so that she would DO THINGS?
She knows where to find the child abuse hotline, she reminds me.
Her sister, Tessa, carried the card with the number in her phone case at this same age to threaten me with calling in instances such as this.
Don’t think she won’t call it. She’ll do it. I will see.
I stayed in the car to make sure she took it.
It took maybe one minute for the entire thing,
but that fact was a moot point.
This had been an outrage, and she let me know that by the look that she gave me.
I just sighed and smiled weakly and pulled away from the school, reminding myself that she is the last one I have to get through this phase.
My last middle-schooler.
Wow.
I’ve almost made it to the end,
and actually, it’s kind of weirdly bittersweet.
I take the moods and emotional chaos as less of a hit to my own ego than I used to now.
I roll with it, expect it, and remember that they are all so much the same.
They have to hiss and moan and lay in piles of snack wrappers.
I’m not unconvinced that it is all literally medically part of this developmental phase.
I half expected their doctors to list these things on the developmental milestone checklists, like how they used to ask me about how many words they were saying.
DOCTOR: “And, what about eye-rolls? Do you count those? How many would you say she does a day?”
ME: “I don’t know? 6?
DOCTOR: *scribbles note* “And what about asking why she always has to be the one to do everything?”
ME: “At least twice a week.”
DOCTOR: “And she’s refusing to take a coat when it’s cold, and insisting on a hoodie when it’s hot?”
ME: “Yes. Consistently.”
DOCTOR: “Good! It looks like she is right on track!”
I bet one day I’ll even miss opening up her lunchbox to find that she didn’t eat a single thing.
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.
