Hello!

Today, I come to you all humbled, because I have no idea how to handle the Jekyll and Hyde type individual that is my soon-to-be 12 year old daughter.  

Last week, she came to me with a smirk on her face saying that there's a boy at school that she's now calling her 'boyfriend.'  At the time, it was 'hush-hush,' meaning she didn't want me to share this information with her father.  It's not information I think needs to be shared right now, so I said nothing to him about this kid.  I did see texts from this aforementioned boy, and he's sending her little heart and rose emojis and being all sweet, to me it looks like puppy love and it's seemingly harmless.  Additionally, my daughter's lock screen on her phone has his picture on it.  I inquired as to what made him her boyfriend at this point.  She said they're 'dating.'

"Oh, really?"  I asked her, "So, he came by on his bicycle to pick you up, then you went to a Disney movie together?"  I'm trying to think of what exactly two eleven-year-olds consider to be a 'date,' considering neither one of them has a penny to their names.

"No,"  (and she added a little eye-roll in there) "We're together at school."

"Oh, so you two share a smooch in between classes?"

"Ewww, MOM!"

I have to say I was relieved when she acted appalled at the last question, but then asked her if she was getting confused between friendship/crushes and a boyfriend, and she says she's not and insists upon labeling him her 'boyfriend,' possibly because, apparently, it's what's cool in middle school.  She talks about her friends having their own boyfriends, so I know it's something that is somewhat inspired by peer pressure rather than on her hormones.  In school, she's mature and she wants to be on the same level as her 'mature' friends.  On one hand, it's good that she and her 'boyfriend' are the same age and in the same grade, and if this blossoms into something a little bit more certain in a couple of years, then I'll begin to worry about the other little things and I'm sure the wasband will be inviting him over to come see his shotgun collection.

Right now, I feel as if I have other things to worry about.  Like my daughter's re-occuring propensity for childish behavior.  On one hand, she likes to feel grown-up...the 'boyfriend' is just one little change; she's also been asking me to have her hair highlighted and she occasionally wants to get acrylic nails.  Then other times, I catch her doing childish things and feel she's in need of the same type of reprimanding you'd give a toddler.  

So, this next thing I'm going to mention also happened last week; although a couple days AFTER she came to me to tell me about her 'boyfriend.'  

She was in our family room playing video games, with her homemade slime and with her phone and iPad at the same time.  (I do think she's undiagnosed attention-deficit-disorder because she can NEVER just focus on one thing.  Even when she's doing homework, she has to have a million things going on at the same time.  It makes for a good future multitasker, but right now, it's not doing her any favors.)  So, she's got all her things out on the couch next to her, she might have also had a snack and drink in front of her.  I know there was also a pillow that may or may not have had a small hole in it before she started playing with that, too, but when I went down to check on her, I found her amidst a conversation with the 'boyfriend,' slime in her hands, game controller sitting idle on her lap, crumbs on the floor and feathers from the pillow scattered all over the floor in front of her.  

"What the holy hell happened in here...???"

"What, the feathers?"

"YES, the feathers!"

"Oh, they just fell out of the pillow."

I can't...I just can't.

I wasn't buying it.  Feathers don't wiggle their way out of pillows.  Nope.  I deduced that she was pulling them out, one by one, because for some reason, doing so fascinated her more than any of the other wonderful things that she had in front of her.  I called bullshit on them feathers jumping out of the pillow unassisted and said a whole bunch of things at that moment, but long story short, I told her that I expected it cleaned up before she left to go to the wasband's for the next few days.  She said she would.

She got picked up on Saturday afternoon, this was the day after she made the mess.  Side note, I'm sure you're all asking - why didn't I go check to make sure?  Simply because I made the mistake of thinking that her age meant she was mature enough to do what she was told?  Well, lesson learned.

Sunday, I went downstairs to fetch a new battery for my XBOX controller.  I had to go through the family room in order to find the Double A's in the garage and when I did, I saw that there were STILL feathers scattered about the floor.  Still a container of slime (thank GOD it was closed) on the couch.  Still the empty water bottle in the cup holder.  Oh, and about the feathers...there weren't that many of them out in the open, leading me to believe she DID attempt to clean up her mess, she just hadn't gotten around to putting the slime away, right?

Nope.

Already slightly pissed off that she didn't clean up 'properly,' I grabbed the nearby broom so that I could finish the job.  She's 11, I'm telling myself.  I can't expect her to clean the way I would clean.  I'm putting the bar too high.  At least she swept up most of the feathers, the reason I'd gotten annoyed with her in the first place is because I KNEW I was going to have to 'finish' her cleaning job.  Just like when I ask the Son to clean something, I ALWAYS end up in there after him, getting places he missed or just plain ignored.  That's the deal when you have kids...you make them clean up their messes when they're old enough to do so, and even so, that Mommy instinct goes in when they're not looking and you re-clean.  It's a way of life for me.  I don't know if it's because of my existing OCD but either way, at this point, it's expected.  As a result, I never ask them to clean too much - why bother?  I end up fixing it, anyway!

When I went to sweep up whatever was left on the floor, I discovered that there was already a PILE of feathers BEHIND the TV stand.  It literally looked as if she'd swept the feathers and rather than sweeping them under the rug, she accumulated them all behind the TV stand hoping that I wouldn't find them there and accuse her of a job NOT well done.

I flung the broom, narrowly missing a cat. (He's fine, he was just startled.)

Out came my phone, and I texted her, making sure not to make any spelling errors:

"Explain to me why it looks like a chicken exploded behind the TV in the family room?"

I get back multiple emojis symbolizing that she's laughing/crying.  

"THIS IS NOT FUNNY NOR COOL!" I texted back to her.  

"Oooops.  Sorry," she texts back.  

My OCD kicks in again.  I could very well have waited for her to come home (tonight) and made her pick each and every one of those frigging feathers up.  With chopsticks, if I wanted to be difficult and serve up a side order of payback.  Or I could have gotten into the car, driven to the wasband's house, picked her up, made her clean up in the above described fashion, then brought her back over there to finish out her time with him.  That's just even more work on my part than just the usual 're-clean.'  I could have done either one of those things, but no.  I couldn't have those feathers there for even a minute longer, especially in an area where various electronics are plugged in.  So I swept up and disposed of the feathers, all while thinking of what I could possibly do to inspire her to grow up.  

And, by 'grow up'...I don't mean in the sense that I don't want her to be my little girl anymore, that's always going to be something that won't change.  The Son is looking more and more hairy as he approaches 18.  His voice is deep, he's driving, he's heading off to college in September and when I look at him, all I see are his baby-faced pictures and thats' usually all it takes for me to get nostalgic.  Same for her.  Only problem is, she's STILL acting as if she's five years old, and her recent redecorating with feathers is just the last straw for me.  I'm partially responsible, for not monitoring her every move, but in my defense - she's almost 12.  Why would I have any reason to believe that a 12-year-old had to be watched while playing video games?  But as I said before, lesson learned.

I spoke to her again last night about it, after I'd had a chance to calm down and process further what she'd done...and asked her why she'd swept the feathers behind the TV stand.  Her response?  "Because I didn't want to clean it."

I informed her that she'd already done most of the 'cleaning;' it takes the same amount of effort to sweep the feathers into a damn dustpan and then empty the dustpan into the trash than it does to put them in a neat little pile behind the TV for me to find and have a fit over later.  She giggled.  But then I threatened to take out her baby pictures when I finally had the opportunity to meet her 'boyfriend.'

 (And, yes, every time I say "boyfriend" you are all free to air quote!  I do.)

Then her eyes got wide.

"You want to have a boyfriend, you need to grow up," I told her.  "You're going to be 12.  Numbers go up, not down.  You need to start thinking before you act, cleaning up your own messes and learn to set an example for your younger sister!"

I'm REALLY hoping I don't have to have this conversation with her, again.  Chances are, I will, because this is simply her Dennis the Menace personality - she once squeezed out an entire tube of my hand/body lotion into the trash can and on the bathroom walls, 'because she liked to see it all come out of the tube.'  And no, she wasn't five when she did that - she was about eight or nine.  NORMAL children that age simply don't do that stuff.  If they do, then I do apologize for the rant and for being mistaken but something tells me I am not.  I think she's, despite all of the things she has, actually BORED and she destructs rather than does things that can be seen as otherwise productive.

Maybe I need to go into her room, dump a pile of feathers in the middle of her floor and when she got home, there they'd be, waiting for her to clean because I didn't want to clean them, either....  (Oh, DAMN, I should have!!!!  WHY do I think of these things AFTER the fact??)

But that's what I'll be doing from now on, it's time to give this kid a taste of her own medicine.  

Hope everyone's day is going well.

By the way, new total for this week - 22.7 pounds gone.  I feel great, I am less hungry, I have more energy.  Looking forward to warmer, sunny days, so I can work on exercising outside more with Dennis, errr....I mean, the Daughter...she's going to try out for the 7th grade basketball team for next year, and I'm sure hoping this will distract her from some of the unfavorable behaviors she's been exhibiting.  We love our basketball hoop, which will be accessible again after tomorrow - Winter Storm Riley decided to droop a tree branch in front of where the hoop is, so a guy from the tree company is coming tomorrow to properly detach the entire branch.

Meanwhile, I'm locking up the rest of the throw pillows until further notice.

- Capulet