Life in the Fast Lane: Working Mom & 3 Tweens

I can't even remember the last book I read for pleasure. Time to exercise is almost nil. My kids are eating on the go almost nightly because I don't have time to cook. My house....well, at least the laundry is kept up somewhat because we need to wear clothes!

But as busy as I am (as we are as a family) I can't really say I have complaints. Look at the beauty of it all:

My babies are all growing up!

My kids are getting BIG. Each night, my 12 year old son gives me a hug goodnight and stands on his tiptoes so that we are eye to eye. I am just over 5'9", and he is just over 5'4" in 7th grade. Each night, I stare in amazement into his eyes, remembering that not very long ago he fit in the crook of my arm.  We argue about chores, homework, and his lack of ability to remember anything unless it is attached to his body (he would forget his head if it wasn't attached, I swear!) When I can, I watch him play basketball (7 practices and 2-4 games/week) but mostly I drive him to his stuff and pick him up again. When I drop him off, he walks off towards a group of friends from junior high school that I don't know. He interacts with them in a way that is new to me. His age won't reflect it for a few more months, but he truly is a teenager now--from his pimple-dotted nose to his rolling eyes. But he is still my baby, and those nightly hugs when he looks at me, eye to eye, remind us both of what it was like when his favorite things were Blue's Clues and collecting rocks.

My middle daughter is going to be 11 this month. She is in a phase I remember well--the beginning of puberty. She is struggling to feel comfortable with her changing body and experimenting with how she looks. She wants to hide her new femininity by wearing baggy tee shirts, but experiment with it by trying new hair styles. She worries a lot (she always has) but the things she worries about have changed a little. She worries about big picture things more--like saving humanity from _____________ (fill in the blank with your favorite plague.) She started a school bakery--which means whenever we have "free" time on weekends, we are baking. She sells the products after school to her classmates and teachers, then donating the proceeds to our Parent Teacher Organization. Though she is selling sweets, she specified that she wants the funds from the bakery to be limited to the purchase of P.E. equipment. How proud am I? Very. She has an amazing heart, loves sweets, and knows how to balance out that love of sweets by exercising! She also played volleyball for the first time this year, starts basketball in a few weeks, takes tap dancing, hip hop and acting classes, got a part in a play that will be performed in January, AND started playing the trombone. When I am not driving her brother to his stuff, I am driving her to her stuff--classes, practices, rehearsals every single day. Yes, you can call me "Taxi Mom."

My youngest daughter will turn 9 just after the New Year. Much to her older sister's chagrin, she is about to pass her up, height-wise. The most frequent feedback I get about my youngest is this: "She TOWERS over EVERYONE!" Yes, she does. She is literally head and shoulders above the rest of her class, and there is only one boy taller in the grade above her. Yet, despite her height she is still just a third grader. Lately she seems to have regressed to the maturity level of a toddler. Veruca Salt comes to mind--"I want the world, I want the whole world! Don't care how...I want it now!" (Check out the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory video here.)  When my daughter doesn't get what she wants, she throws herself into a tizzy of crying, screaming, and carrying on that really takes me back in time to the toddler years. It is a classic case of tween terror: "I'm getting so big and grown up that I need to regress for a while to the comfort of being little."  She has these fits pretty regularly and I have to send her to her room, ignore her for a while to let her know that I'm not falling for the theatrics, and she can't have what she wants (chocolate at bed time, a cell phone of her own, whatever other inappropriate for an-almost-9-year-old demand that she is making at the moment.) Every 5 minutes or so, I go to her room and remind her that if she keeps crying she will make herself sick. She sniffles some snot and then wails a little louder. I walk away until another 5 minutes have passed. (Any behavior focused teachers out there will recognize this as "neutral prompting"--teaching is an awful lot like parenting!)  Eventually, she comes to the realization that I am not going to give in and she walks out of her room like nothing ever happened. She carries on with her life, and then clings to me all night long. She is wandering out in life: playing basketball on a club team twice a week, taking dance, acting and singing classes, participating in a garden club and a Girl Scout troop...but when she gets home she needs to cuddle in close. Venturing out into the world can be scary business! She really reminds me of a toddler--you know that stage where they learn to walk and can get away from Mama, but when they get too far they come running back to hug your legs, feel safe again.

They are busy. And I am still working at my new job, learning things, and getting to know the system. These are crazy times, but I love it all. Life is good!

Tweenage Choices/Consequences, Casting Stones & Trayvon

My son is officially a hormonal tweenager. He is a year away from having the official -teen at the end of his age, but he's definitely there, and I know it because of last week.

On Saturday at bedtime when I told him it was time to put on his head gear, he hated me. I could see it in his eyes. He gave me that look. When I ignored it, and kept insisting on the head gear, he cried.

On Sunday when his dad was cleaning up he found old pizza crusts under the love seat. He informed our son that he could no longer eat in our downstairs family room (aka "the man cave.") In that moment, he hated his dad. We could see it in his eyes. And he cried so hard that he threw up.

On Monday after school, he happily played basketball with his friends, mocked his little sisters and had a great day...until I asked him to stop mocking his little sisters. Then he hated me. I could see it in his eyes. But he didn't stop the teasing, so I had to pull the "wait 'til your dad gets home" card. When his dad got home, then he hated him, too. Of course, he cried (and lost his video-gaming privileges for the next day.)

On Tuesday, he came home from school and laid on the couch because he wasn't allowed to play any games. He sulked. Thinking he was sick, I asked him if he was okay. "No," was all he said. After some prodding, he finally let loose one detail, "Papi looks at me like he hates me."  (Hard not to smile at the irony here... really...)

I comforted and consoled him, but also explained that when I ask him to stop making fun of his sisters I expect him to stop. When he doesn't clean up after himself, he will lose some privileges.  I also explained that neither of us hate him; we're just trying to get him ready to be a responsible adult. He's probably going to alternate between hating me and hating his dad for the next 5 years or so; but that's just part of being a teenager. He looked at me and said, "I don't hate you. I just hate wearing head gear. I love you."

Awww....that melted my heart. (But not enough to give him back his gaming privileges.)

Kids, especially tweens and teens, make some really poor decisions. Their brains aren't fully developed, they make impulsive choices, and have that extra added element of peer pressure working against them. My son is just embarking on this journey of hard choices and harder consequences known as the teenage years. I hope we all make it through okay...but I worry. I've seen my students make a lot of bad choices. Some choices are much worse than others and can lead to life or death situations. Others aren't so serious. I told my son, "All kids make stupid decisions at some point; I just hope the ones you make don't hurt you or anyone else too badly. Try to stop and think before you do anything. Think about the possible consequences."

Here's a laundry list of common poor choices made by teens: stealing booze from a parent's liquor cabinet, driving without a license, driving while drunk, sneaking out at night for a date with a boy/girl, cheating on a test, procrastinating a homework assignment, shoplifting, drawing/writing on a wall, calling a parent a name, staying out past curfew, saying you'll be with one friend when you're really with another, smoking cigarettes, taking money from mom/dad's wallet without permission, paying for one movie at the theater but watching three, illegally downloading music/movies from the 'net, talking back to a parent/teacher, making fun of a peer/bullying just to look cool in front of "friends",  speeding or driving erratically...

That list could go on and on and on...there is really no limit to the number of bad choices teens can make. Is there any adult who didn't make at least one of those bad choices when they were a teen? Really?

I've been sickened to read stories about people trying to prove Trayvon Martin was a thug by hacking into his email account and looking at his school records; they are looking for evidence that he "deserved it."  Here's the deal: just like I told my son--EVERYONE makes bad decisions as a teenager. I did. I'm betting you did. I know my kids will. It's a fact of life. Imagine if your bad teen decision came back to haunt you as a reason you deserved to die.

Imagine it.

Perhaps you lied to your parents once about your whereabouts in high school--that makes you a thug who had it coming. Or you caved in to peer pressure and hid someone else's evidence because they were worried about getting caught. Now you're a no-goodnik who deserved to be shot.

I admit it; I can't let the Trayvon Martin story go. It rained a couple of times this week and I watched my son go out the door in a hoodie. It just came to me again...a boy who is not much older than him is now dead. Trayvon may have made some bad choices in his teen years. We all do. But that night in Sanford, FL he didn't deserve to die.

I am still worried about my son. He is going to, like every teen, make some bad choices. I have no trouble at all making him face the consequences of those choices. But he didn't choose to be born with brown skin. He shouldn't have to face consequences for that.