My daughter turns 12 next month.
She is in 6th grade and now attends a public middle school in NYC.
She commutes by a MTA bus 20 blocks there and back and she is making new friends.
She is also becoming tweenie which means exactly what you think: whiny, mood swings, quick ironic wit which surpasses her parents,
stalemates, impasses, oily hair and a ton of new skills reflecting independence
and maturity which make me incredibly proud and hopeful that she will develop
into a pretty substantial adult. This growth is like everyone tells you: the
lead foot is on the gas pedal and she is growing fast in every way. Before my
eyes she is growing. I think I saw her foot grow tonight. I mean it. It
expanded before my eyes.
She makes good choices. She also
messes up and doesn’t remember to log in her tuba practice time on the school
website which might mess up her GPA (I know, really?!) but she’s on top of it.
For now.
She is having a sleepover with a
new friend, right now. A new girl who is kind of great and different from
her other friends. She has a different look and style. Without going into
details, which might inaccurately describe her, just imagine that she probably has to deal with some interesting stuff as
she gets older because she stands out a bit. I like that they click and
are becoming good friends. They are tweenie friends, hovering around a YouTube
music video and I can't decide how to gauge the fuzzy inappropriate line. Do I
monitor (helicopter)? Intrude? Joke with an awkward embarrassing twerking
move which they will ignore? I am not cool. Before you yawn and turn the page because you’ve heard
all this predictable whiny parent “oh, what happened to my little baby?” junk, I
think I might have something to say here. (OMG they are singing in the other room with
the door closed. SO cute. Sorry.)
Tonight, when my kid hit a wall of
exhaustion she picked up a book and sat quietly on her zebra print bean bag
chair. Her new friend looked a little lost and I didn’t want to get involved,
because tweenies hate that. But like kids do, they figured it out. Both sat
separately and read and before I knew it they were imitating the “new” Miley
Cyrus getting crushed by an imaginary wrecking ball which I thought was
clever. And disturbing.
When I hear parents weep into their
oatmeal facing empty nest syndrome I roll my eyes because I judge them for
not having enough of a life of their own. I know that’s brutal and terrible,
but what is the big deal? Obviously, I’m the fucked up one in the room, but
that’s another story. So, my point is
this: I’ve started becoming a bit tweenie myself. I’m going though my own
little oily hair, cursing in front of elderly people, watching YouTube videos
of tattooed nether-droid beings who are producing sounds and movements which
make NO sense. I am becoming a cultural wasteland on my iPhone and Twitter
feed. However, in this depressive state
I notice that I am drinking a lot less wine during the week.
Are you still with me? There is no
tidy ending here. I’m lost. I am crying in my oatmeal and laughing at jokes which pop into my head that amuse no one but me. I’m a total tween so leave me
alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment