Being a mom to a tween challenges me to be a better person. Or, wait, what?

Tween. noun.  A youngster between 10 and 12 years of age, considered too old to be a child and too young to be a teenager.

Tell me about it. 

The dichotomy of a tween is the height of unfairness for parents. Managing the expectations, YOUR expectations of what you think your tween should do or how they should act or look or talk or smell or anything - well it is a tremendous challenge. Let's face it, the tween stage is something akin to aliens replacing your child with a freshly cloned facsimile who is trying to learn what it is like to be a human being with zero experience and ultimately, limited success. Emotional, highly sensitive, easily irritated, full of attitude and prone to tear-filled outbursts... sounds eerily similar to my previous posts about toddlers. I mean you got through that phase only to be lulled into a false sense of NORMALCY, and now it is clear that Pixar's Inside Out movie is really your life. Your daughter is growing up and has all of these emotions and she is not a little girl anymore and seriously, wtf is happening? And now she is crying. Why is she crying?!

I have a tween.

She is sitting next to me at the table right now, chewing VERY LOUDLY with her mouth open. Despite my many protestations asking her, guiding her, willing her to close her mouth while she chews. Sigh. She is clueless to the fact that she is doing it.

At least I think she is.
Maybe she is just messing with me. I mean that bodes some investigation. If you have
a. been told
b. been shown - I mean I demo this
c. been instructed
I don’t know, umpteen times...and you still are not doing it...then...do you not care? Do you not think about it? Or, help?

Sometimes I look back at the blogs about her when she was five. She is so much the same. So challenging. But harder now. Because now she is challenge laced with sass, and with a little bit of I know better - but only a little bit.

I wonder if other moms are going through what I am. I mean I am sure that they are faced with the mood swings, the cheek, the normal-ness of having a tween. I wonder if they feel it as sorely as I seem to. This bundle of raw emotions that I am regularly faced with - that the whole family is faced with - does it take up so much space for them, too?

My daughter has many special gifts, she is very silly - a wonderful quality in my eyes, and she is brilliant, she is kind - especially to animals, not so much to younger brothers, and she is a talented violinist. She is also hard.

K thanks.
She just texted me that. We text now. I mean why wouldn't we, she is just UPSTAIRS.

She is suspended between child and teenager. One minute I can see the young woman she is becoming...the next minute a little girl. Whip smart, sassy and starting to get boobs. Yet prefers shirts with cats on them and books about cats. Weeeee, loves cats! Even meows to me on occasion instead of using words. Can’t be bothered to brush her hair - or even to make sure that her socks are not sitting on top of her leggings. Or that only one is. Please brush your teeth. JUST PLEASE BRUSH YOUR HAIR. And yet, has shown an interest in boys.

Actual conversation:
When did you take your last shower?
Just did.
Well your hair doesn't smell like you did.
Oh, I didn't wash it.
Why not?
The potential for water getting in my eyes is too great.
So you last actually washed your hair WHEN?
Let me think...

Cut to me:

But of course I can't say that. BUT I WAS REALLY THINKING IT. Do other moms think that, too? They must. Someone please tell me they do, because one minute everything is great and the next minute I don't know what happened and she is in a fury-flare. And I should do what? 

I find myself sighing A LOT. Oh, and wishing I had the unlimited patience of my mother to see us through this madness. 

Meow?