It’s been a rough couple of days. Last Thursday night my 14 year old daughter texted me that she was inviting “a few of her track friends over to bake some cookies to raise money for her team.” Since she has made it clear that I don’t do enough entertaining and that our house is filled with stuffed animals and she wants me to completely renovate everything and she will NEVER have a cluttered house like me — and basically lays the guilt on me so thick I could CUT IT WITH A KNIFE– and she texted me while I was at a junket for Unbreakabke Kimmy Schmidt and not completely paying attention and wanting to be the cool mom and just make her smile I said, “OF COURSE!”
( Don’t we look so cute in this pic! Loved meeting Crazy Adventures in Parenting and Food Fun Family )
Fast forward to Friday afternoon and there are a whole bunch of girls in my house ( who are all incredibly sweet) but apparently (unbeknowst to me) they are making 300 baked goods. Now there are some mothers/women for whom this would be NO BIG DEAL. But while I want to be the fun mom I draw the line at being the mom who wants to let her kitchen be used as a bakery. I honestly am NOT THAT MOM who can see flour and frosting covering every nook and cranny of my house and be totally cool with it. In fact I am that mom who would rather pay to rent a space and let the girls bake and pay someone to clean it up.
While I was quietly having a nervous breakdown inside I figured as soon as everyone left I would just go in and clean. Except no one had any intention if leaving and well at 11 pm I texted my daughter ( because I would never start screaming at her in front of her friends) and told her to come to my bedroom where I read her the RULES of life aka– STAY UP AS LONG AS YOU NEED TO AND CLEAN.
Well ever since Friday night and staying up till 4am to clean my teen has come down with a horrible cold (yes I feel guilty). And in her hopped up on Advil and sore throat state she has said several things to me which (were it not for my husband holding me up) would have gutted me completely.
The one that really killed me and got me at my core was how, “It is all your fault that I am short and am not growing.” And yes that is true, and yes I struggle with guilt over the fact that I have passed on a short stature gene to my kids and married someone whose height doesn’t really give them a leg up and if there were some kind of magic pill I’d pay/risk anything to give it to each of my kids.
But alas neither one is deficient in growth hormone so shooting either of them up with hormones is not medically advised- but I digress. My teen has a way of saying things that literally get right to the core of my heart- and make me question all the decisions and every parenting win I thought I had under my belt.
There is no rosy bow I can say to tie up this post with– and every day is a lesson in patience and trying hard not to take everything so personally. I’m trying and hoping a nice binge watch of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt with my teen in tow will help bring some levity to our lives and show her that short women ( like me and Carol Kane) can do GREAT things!
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