OK, maybe Joan Crawford is going a little overboard, but I recently had a few situations with my daughters that caused me to realize my shortcomings with parenting.
Now I have talked to a few friends with kids in that 12-13yr old range so I know I'm not alone...but I keep looking for the switch....you know, the one that someone is secretly switching on and off causing my 12 yr old to suddenly turn into an irrational, screaming girl who cannot understand why her Mother does terrible, horrible things to her. Even when I wasn't there. For example, she has an Aeropostale sweatshirt that she wears all the time. It is her jacket, her blanket, her napkin, her candy hiding place, etc. You get the picture. We forced her to take it off the other night so we could wash it and I put it in the dryer, which I don't normally do for fear it would alter some way...but I was working under time constraints. Soooo....the following morning when she was rushing around like normal to get ready in time for her school bus, she put on her sweatshirt. Now, the zipper pull had migrated to the top of the zipper during the wash...and I might remind you she is an honors student, but that apparently stops at the book smarts. She grabbed both sides of the bottom of the sweatshirt and started screaming at me that I should never have put it in the dryer because now it was broken and she couldn't zipper it! I mean this was quite a tirade...as she continued screaming, she took off said sweatshirt and threw it. I almost felt bad, only because she was going to feel really stupid in two seconds. I slowly picked up the sweatshirt and right in front of her, pulled the zipper pull all the way down to the bottom...then handed it back to her. She immediately laughed and said she was sorry....oh, sorry, I was in my happy place again! She put the sweatshirt on and said I had shrunk it (it fit perfectly).
Now the next incident needs me to remind everyone that my 9 year old is nicknamed Dramatica for a reason. I also need to remind you that several times I have denied my children medical attention because I thought they were faking, only to find out they actually did have a fractured wrist and strep throat. OK, with that being said, one day this past week, instead of my alarm waking me at 5:15am as usual, I awoke at 6:30a - very bad. We have a strict morning schedule and we were all running around with our heads cut off. One of our dogs was acting weird so I asked the girls to let the dogs outside, and I turned to go get dressed. I had only managed to get my pants and bra on when I heard screams. I didn't panic, but then Jamie was screaming, "She's not breathing!" and Jamie was screaming and whining...when I asked who it was that wasn't breathing and she screamed, "Bethany!", I thought I was going to throw up. I couldn't imagine what had happened to cause such an accident! I raced to the other side of the house half dressed. Jamie is frozen in the kitchen, pointing to Bethany who is sprawled out on her back on the deck outside. Bethany is drawing in deep breaths and crying. It was at this moment that the lightbulb went on. We have seriously failed our children somewhere along the way. They are clearly grossly unprepared for life. I looked at Jamie, pointed to her sister and said, "That is breathing - clearly she is breathing!". So I wondered if Bethany had actually not been breathing, would Jamie just have stood there, doing nothing? Moving on....the slider door was still open and I looked at Bethany, still dressed in shorts, tank top, no socks or shoes...still laying on the deck in 30 degree freezing cold weather. I asked her what happened and she said she slipped. I kind of rolled my eyes (maybe a clue to the poor parenting?) and marched out to help her up...this is when I realized the entire deck was covered in a microscopic film of ice and I almost went down myself. I wished I could take the eye rolling back. I asked her what made her think it was OK to go out side dressed as she was when it was so cold? She had no answer for me. Had we done a better job, she would know this was a bad idea. So I ended up taking Bethany to the emergency room and she is fine, just sore. But does she know how to milk it!
As I was just sitting her writing this, she was making up songs while playing the piano (she does not know how to play), one song was about how the devil is coming to town to steal your soul. Something is just not right there.
No comments:
Post a Comment