Which is why I have spent WAY TOO MANY evenings sitting next to a softball field wearing long johns, a winter coat, several layers of clothing PLUS blankets and STILL freezing.
It is also why I am sporting a very red face today — windburn. Yesterday, I was sitting next to a softball field from 9:30 a.m. until 5 ish.
It would be nice if the wind wasn’t so gosh darn cold! I thought yesterday was a heat wave compared to most nights I’ve watching games.
Mother and Blogger Mir Kamin said this about being a mother on her facebook page, “Sadly, this is the point in every OTHER job I’ve had where I’ve realized my soul is being crushed and it’s time to resign. But motherhood is kinda the Hotel California of jobs, it turns out. NO ONE TOLD ME.”
And can we all just shout out an “Amen” to that one?
I am in a bit of a mothering anxiety now and for once, it isn’t because of my oldest. No, there’s a new teenager on the block and she is trying to do me in.
If you ask her friends, I am the mother who is ruining her daughter’s life, and I just need to stay out of it.
Because that is EXACTLY what a mother of a 14-year-old is supposed to do. Stay out of her daughter’s life and ignore the horribly stupid mistakes that child is trying to make in order to ruin her life.
I admit I struggled with the oldest child. It didn’t work out well. We fought constantly, and she pretty much did everything she could that she thought her mother would hate. For a while there, I was seriously concerned about our future relationship. I thought there was a chance we might not have one because she hated me so badly.
The oldest child did so many things right that it was hard to reconcile her behavior when it came to boys. She is smart and caring and responsible in most avenues of her life, but when it came to boys, for a long time there she made a lot of stupid choices and was easily influenced. She’s better now and probably counting the days when she can move the heck out of my house where she is still treated like a child when she so badly wants to be an adult.
That daughter turns 18 in May. She graduates from high school in June. She already has a semester’s worth of college credits and plans to move out of our house in June. She gives birth to her daughter in September.
Having my daughter be a teenage mom is not what I wanted for her, but ultimately I can’t control her every move. I did what I could to protect her (lots of talks and birth control), but sometimes birth control doesn’t work and what happens, happens.
I don’t think my oldest daughter’s life is ruined. I’m on her side, and she is going to be a fantastic mom. I know that she will be successful in her life although it is going to be harder for her than I wanted it to be. The nice thing is that the baby’s dad is a nice guy who will be a great dad too.
I also have a 16-year-old daughter who, thankfully, has avoided bad boys. She has an extremely low tolerance for BS from boys, and I wish I could bottle that up and give it to every single teenage girl I know because it is a good thing. The down side is that when a boy does her wrong, there is no forgiveness. He’s done.
Either that, or she is a fricking genius at keeping things from her mother. I doubt that’s it.And if it is, I don’t want to find out about it until SHE is 40.
And then there’s the 14-year-old who is currently making me think that I was an idiot to ever consider being a mother to begin with because I am so woefully unprepared for the crap that she deals out.
She is so cute and charming and she can lie her pants off. She can look at you with tears in her eyes and swear it will never happen again, and she feels horrible and then the next day, she does the same darn thing.
I have talked to her and explained things to her. I have punished her. I have grounded her. I have taken away all of her electronics. She still does the thing that she isn’t supposed to do.
I am seriously thinking of pulling her from her current school in order to stop the contact between her and this boy. I am looking into homeschooling options and other school districts.
The hardest thing about being a parent is learning that ultimately you don’t have any power over what your kids do. It is their choice to make and no matter how much you’ve taught them right from wrong and good from bad, sometimes they are still drawn to the wrong direction. And at 14? Sometimes a teenage boy has so much more influence over your teenage daughter than a parent does. Damn hormones.
I should note that my 14-year-old daughter does not date. She doesn’t go anywhere with boys. The only time she sees the boy that she isn’t supposed to see is at school, which is why I am looking into homeschooling or switching school districts. If she can’t stay away from him at school, she doesn’t need to be attending that school.
My 14-year-old daughter is feeling neglected. It seems that I have not blogged about her nearly enough, and she has made her complaint about this lack of bloggage known.
This blog is an attempt to correct that oversight.Here she is taking a picture of herself with my camera:
And here’s another picture of her along with the mouth of one of her older sisters:
I thought I have done a good job of not neglecting my younger children. Proof: I have completely filled out baby books for all four children. There are tons of photos of all four children.
But my youngest daughter might not agree with all of that. It seems I never remember to take a camera to her games, and she has asked that I change that this year. So tonight, I will be attending her softball game and have a camera with me. I should remember to take the photo too.
She frequently accuses me of failing to help her (usually with computer problems) when she asks. Then weeks later, when I tell her she needs to ask for help, she will say, “I did that one day. Remember? You were too busy.”
Um. Yeah. Not an accurate depiction. The girl will spend hours hiding in her room or riding the dirt bike and then at 9 p.m. on a Sunday night decide that she needs to do all of her homework right that moment. It seems she only remembers to ask me for help when I am working on a deadline and can’t help. Or if I ask her to do something to make it easier such as “bring your computer over here” it becomes impossible to do.
I have never forgotten to pick her up, which is something that has happened to her older sister and younger brother (knock on wood). She tends to be louder than both of them.
She has spent a lot of time this past year without her cell phone and computer (a nice way to say she has been grounded more than once).
We have been doing Zumba regularly, and Maxine is hoping to develop visible abs. She isn’t far away from that goal.
She is the youngest girl, and she gets on her older sisters’ nerves quite frequently. Many times, she does this on purpose. She can also quickly give you a litany of reasons why her sisters get things that she doesn’t. Yesterday, for instance, her older sister ate one of my protein bars. My food is generally a “no no,” but once in a while I give in and let the kids eat something. I had one more left, and Maxine wanted it. I said no, but I offered her some Skinny Cow candy instead. It wasn’t a good trade in Maxine’s mind. Amanda had a protein bar, so why couldn’t she? Um, because the protein bar has PROTEIN, which I need, and here, have some chocolate candy instead. It’s a horrible life being the younger sister.
I wanted to share this picture from the recent Father-Daughter Dinner dance that my husband attended with my two oldest daughters, Amanda and Autumn.
I’m blogging A to Z in April! Check back every day (except Saturdays) for a new post!
My mom never fails to ask me what I’ve been doing lately. And sadly, the answers don’t change much.
It is week 14 of a 17 week semester. This means I am grading, grading, grading.
I am also the mom of four children who play sports and have social lives, so it means I’m driving, driving, driving.
Using that same disclaimer, I am also cleaning, cleaning, cleaning; nagging, nagging, nagging (Amanda, did you wash those pans YET?); laundering, laundering, laundering.
And on weekends, I try to squeeze in as many moments with my hubby as I can. I do that during the week too, but there are less distractions on the weekend.
But mostly I’m grading, and if I’m not grading? I should be grading.
It is hard not to be grading when you 1) teach English and 2) have around 100 students.
Plus, this semester, I have started grading conferences. This is where students meet with me to discuss the paper as I’m grading it. I like this. It helps me stay on track with grading, AND students hear all of my comments.
But my mom still asks.
My mom actually asks a lot of questions.
Like the other day, she asked what the kids had been doing. And I mentioned they went to a mud bog.
“Where did they get the mud?” my mom asked.
Um…. They grew it.
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