My daughter’s Thoughtful 13. How sweet it was…

So my “tween” just crossed the threshold into teen-dumb I meant ‘dom’. Bad mommy! 😀  I made sure the birthday staples were covered: cake, pizza and goody bags, but I also wanted to make sure that she got a wealth of guidance (not just loot and gifts) at this milestone in her journey.  My family and friends are amazing, with insights that I may not be able to effectively impart.  At the birthday gathering I asked each of them to jot down some words of wisdom between mingling and noshing on fish tacos.  Some complied, some were too busy noshing—those were some damn good tacos.  Anyway I said they were amazing not obedient.

My plan is to do something with the advice notes. Something posterity worthy that will inspire her to keep them around.  No, I haven’t already decoupaged them, crafted them into an origami sculpture or blew them up poster sized and wall papered her room with them.  I’m not that kind of WordPresser—not yet anyway (Crafty McCraftensteins I AM joining your ranks one day! Look out!).  But I do hope that the gesture was not lost on her and my daughter knows that we expect her to be thoughtful, introspective and engage the world around her.  She really is a special gal…

I'm a softy of a parent but I'm not above crafting these notes into a medieval torture device---you know, for when the resident teen needs further elucidation.

Day/Title 71

Paris, Pee Wee, and Big Dog

Guy, Rosa

New York : Delacorte, 1984

My reaction:

How fitting that today’s book be one of my fav’s from when I was a teen!

Critics were hard on this book: "The potential for a story is here, but this one never quite happens as it plods laboriously along." School Library Journal

Not your Grandma’s Mother

Hi All!

Forgive me for deviating from the Dewey-A-Day norm will yall? Just had to get this out but I do give you a bite sized Dewey entry sans ‘my reaction’ at the end of the ‘Mother’ post for you die-hard Dewey heads 😀

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The following was inspired by a recent epiphany:

“Oooh he’s kinda cute”… “Ooh! I wanna get this outfit so I can be the bomb.com!”  These words have actually been uttered (to me mind you) from the perpetually glossed lips of my  actual 12 year old.  Pre-epiphany this kind of overly familiar teen talk would get met with a disapproving glare from me or a scold:  How are you talking to me!? You do know I’m your mother right?! That’s inappropriate!

I may owe my daughter an apology greater understanding.  You see, prior to this epiphany whether I “did it like my mother” was my litmus test for whether I was mothering right.  I now see a mild error in that logic  because all of the ‘players’ involved are different.   I was a different kind of child than my daughter is and my mother’s experiences made her different from me and vice versa.

That said, I realize that my mother did a bang up job raising us (fight anyone who says otherwise!) but I don’t have to follow her blueprint to the letter to be a successful parent.  Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but in this case it may be the sincerest way to ruin your mother/daughter relationship with your own child.

After an exchange like the aforementioned one I asked my daughter “Why do you talk to me like this? I would have never had this kind of conversation with my mother”.  Note that her talk was not in a disrespectful tone, just a very ‘familiar’ tone.  She looked at me with that look specific to pre-teens and teens, lip gloss just a poppin on her pursed lips and said “like what? what way?”

But in that instant I had answered my own question.  She talked to me in a way that was natural to her, and when I wasn’t holding myself to my mother’s standard—a much more strict, conservative parenting style—I realized that it felt very natural to me too.  So in the end my daughter and I do talk freely.  We might talk about things that might make another mother blush or get worked up into a self-righteous tizzy. That’s ok.  I’m the mom.com in my house and we’re doing it our way 😉

Mother/daughter girl talk...with only the occasional reminder about who pays the cost to be the boss.

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As promised!

Day 11

Bibliographic info:

The quotable scientist : Words of wisdom from Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Galileo, Marie Curie, and more

Horvitz, Leslie Alan

McGraw Hill 2000

Summary: A book-o-quotes from that odd lot called scientists