Teen Angst

Over the past couple of days I have been pulling up some old videos from ten or eleven years ago. It was only Allie and Sami back then-- my two wild ones. As I watched them dance and wrestle and sing, I felt a twinge of longing for those days.

Till I pulled up a certain video (actually, the one I was originally trying to find) of a certain child throwing a pretty big tantrum, which was pretty much a daily ritual. She fought me on everything in those days, and she was only three years old! If something wasn't her idea she wanted nothing to do with it. At some point everyday there would be two females with iron wills going head-to-head.

I always won because... well, I'm Mom. Moms don't lose.

She calmed down significantly once she started Kindergarten. And from then on, she mellowed to the point where people were completely shocked when I would tell them she was a handful when she was small. "No!" they would say. "Not Allie! She's too sweet to be difficult!" Yeah...

She really was sweet, though. She developed compassion and empathy (which, honestly, I thought never would happen), and stopped screaming at me. In fact, I can't even remember the last time she raised her voice at me...

She was happy with a bright smile and infectious laugh. It was a joy to be around her.

But as she approached the age of twelve we sat her down.

"Look, Allie, we wanted to warn you about a terrible disease that you are soon to acquire. We feel it necessary to warn you of the symptoms."

She was suspicious (too smart to really buy it). "What.. 'disease'?"

"It's called 'adolescence.' You'll start thinking you know everything and we know nothing and 'just don't understand.' You'll probably roll your eyes a lot and be really annoyed with us. We just wanted to make you aware so you know how to recognize it."

She laughed a little. "Ugh, ok." And that was it. Occasionally after that we would remind her of the warning if we started to see signs. She would usually laugh and agree.

Well, a few weeks ago she turned fourteen, and it has now hit. Full-blown. And it's contagious.

Suddenly, we are terribly annoying. We just don't know what it's like to be a teenager. We don't let her do anything! We are inconvenient. We are embarrassing. The works.

I really wish there was an antidote for this because I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. I feel like we have reverted back to her toddler/preschool days. Everything warrants a battle and questioning, because (obviously) her intelligence surpasses our own.

Hey, at least she doesn't scream at me anymore.

Allie and Sami have a little brother. He has always been a bit destructive, but he was my saving grace when they were small because he was so amiable. He was predictable. He was sweet to me. When I became pregnant with number four, I hoped it would be another boy.

I went in for the ultrasound with Kevin and the girls.

After lying there on the table for a while, anxious to know, the tech said, "Well, it looks like Dad is good a making girls." My heart sank a little.

She finished, we walked out of the building, and I put my head on Kevin's chest and sobbed. "She's going to be mean to me!" I was a pregnant, hormonal wreck.

Yet I held on to hope. And when that little one was born I fell for her instantly, as mothers do. She was a darling baby-- so cuddly, so good-natured.

The estrogen kicked in when she was about three. That girl is a roller-coaster of emotion. Exuberant, passionate, opinionated, thoughtful, angry, empathetic. But I had anticipated this. The only kind of girls I make are strong-willed ones, just like their mom.

So now I have three females taking me on their own wild rides... at the same time.

I was talking with a friend last night, one who has been through these teen years already with her own daughters. She admitted it was hard. Really hard. "But," she said, "it will get better. It will get better."

That's good news, but do I really have to wait till they are adults to see that? I know I shouldn't wish away these years, but this teen angst is getting to me. It's wearing down my soul. No lie. No, I'm not being melodramatic. I have a gift of lightness and buoyancy, but with every eye-roll and sigh and glare of annoyance that light dims. I sink. I don't like living in darkness.

But... I suppose I don't really need to leave the light. I know she isn't seeking that control, but I also don't need to to give it to her... or to any of her sisters. I can allow them to take their "wild rides," but I don't need to join them. I can just sit on a bench nearby and eat an ice cream cone with their brother. He doesn't want to ride with them either.

Turning 12 is Hard

This past weekend our Sami turned twelve. Twelve is a big deal is our house. It's a sort of "coming-of-age" age. We started a tradition two years ago with her older sister Allie where she got to choose an amusement park and spend a day there with Mom. Sami, just like Allie, chose Universal Studios because of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. We actually went several weeks earlier anticipating spring-breakers in March. It was a brilliant idea, because for only one ride did we have to wait more than five minutes. Seriously, it was spectacular. We wore matching Gryffindor shirts and ate lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, Sami was "chosen" (squeal!) at Ollivanders and got a pretty sweet wand (which she carried around all day), and the weather was perfectly perfect.

After the Mardi Gras parade that evening we made our way back to the car, and poor Sami burst into tears, devastated that the day had to end. Truthfully, I was a bit sad, too. It really was a super fantastic day, but I tried to help us focus on the great memories we made. And she tried to redirect her energy into the coloring app on her tablet. It helped... till we got home and she climbed into bed.

Around two o'clock in the morning I heard a knock at our bedroom door. Groggy, I slipped out of bed and made my blurry way toward the door to open it to find a tear-stained Sami.

"Mom, I haven't been able to sleep all night."

Sigh. "What do you want me to do, Sam?"

"I don't know..."

I told her to sit and color or read in the family room until she was sleepy. Then I closed the door and went back to sleep.

She was still on the couch when I woke up at 6:30. Apparently, she had not been able to sleep at all, and sat there crying. Again, sigh. Often times those situations end with vomit involved, so I was grateful we didn't have to deal with that this time.

So she stayed home and slept and relaxed. There was no way I was going to torture that child and send her to school. Her teachers understood.

But she wouldn't put that wand down the whole day. It was like a security blanket, comforting her with its magic of warmth and joy and imagination. Seriously, if I could really send her to Hogwarts I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Well, like I said, all of that was three weeks ago. Her birthday was this past weekend. It so happened that this past Friday was a day off from school as well as an off-Friday for my husband. It had been on my calendar since the Fall, so we had decided after we got our Sea World passes in December that we would spend March 16th at Sea World.

The plan was slightly foiled when Sam's dance teacher told me she really couldn't skip dance on Friday afternoon. We decided we would still go with our plan, but that we would leave early to get to dance. Not a big deal, really, since we have passes.

So we made a goal to get there when it opened, which didn't really happen since we left a little late and hit a bunch of unusual traffic. But we weren't too off on our goal. The kids had brought things to keep them entertained in the car. Sami had her tablet again, along with multiple blankets and books. She sat most of the time with her earbuds in, listening to music.

Parking was a breeze. Hardly anyone was there, relatively. Kevin turned off the car and I pulled out the sunscreen to pass around.

"Alright, guys. Hop out and put on sunscreen."

Sami took out her earbuds. "Ok, let me put on my shoes..." (Now, let me interject here by saying that this girl hates having shoes on in the car. Not sure why. Because of this we had to instill a rule that you couldn't take off your shoes unless we were driving for more than an hour. Ok, back to the story...) "Where are are my shoes?"

She shoved aside all of her blankets in a panic, till reality set in. "I forgot my shoes!" And then the tears flowed. "I wanted this to be a fun day, and now it's ruuuuiiiined! We can't go to Sea World!"

Kevin sat in the front seat convulsing with silent laughter. Surprisingly, I remained calm. "Hey, it's fine. We can go in and buy you some flip flops." Kevin offered to give her a piggy-back ride.

"I don't want to go inside barefoot! Plus, I can't wear flip flops all day!"

"Ok, fine. Look, your feet are almost as big as mine. Just wear my tennis shoes. We'll buy flip flops for me."

She put them on. "They're too big. I can't wear these!"

At that point I started losing it... "Then what do you want to do?!"

After sitting in the car for far too long, we all emerged and finished up with sunscreen. Sami decided to try my shoes after all, so I stood there in socks, wondering if they would let me inside.

Since Sami no longer needed a piggy-back ride I took up Kevin in his offer and jumped up on his back. And then I was the one laughing uncontrollably as made our way through the parking lot, which made him laugh. We looked absolutely ridiculous.

Of course the shop outside the gate had no flip flops in my size, so we had to go inside the park. Meaning, I knew I had to try to convince the employees to let me in with no shoes. We walked through the security and no one said a word. Then we walked through the gate, and the guy that took my ticket looked at my feet and moved on. He said nothing. It was oddly easy. So back on to Kevin's back I rode till we got to the next shop.

Flip flops were found and the day was saved.

Actually, what really saved the day was choosing to go to Sea World on the same day as the Flamms. Sami and their oldest daughter have been friends since birth. We met up with them not long after the shoe fiasco, and that lifted Sami completely out of her wallowing in self-pity.

I tend to forget how hard it was to be twelve, trying to grasp the concept that I'm no longer a child, but not quite a teenager. Not sure where I fit it. Too old for Barbies, but too young for boys. Hormones raging, and trying to makes sense of it all. In reality, Sami is handling it beautifully. Sure, she can be an emotional wreck at times. But, admittedly, so am I... still. But she is extremely responsible and focused. She is fun and silly and bright. From a darling little bud is a lovely rose blooming. It's going to be a rough transition at times, I know.

Do you see that bright smile in that picture, though? Yeah, I know, maybe it was because she was flying on a wild roller coaster. But still. Do you see the joy on her face? Yes, that. It's the joy that will carry us through those hard times. It's always there, inside of her. Inside of me. Because life is good. It's not perfect, but it doesn't need to be perfect to be joyful. I can seek the good. I can seek joy.

Even while in bare feet at an amusement park.