Tweenzilla

I am sitting here in my office with a glass of red wine, a well deserved glass of red wine I might add, and I am finally feeling my nerves start to calm. I had great plans this labor day weekend and even though many of my friends took off to the beach or enjoyed some R&R, I was planning on laboring around the house this weekend. What I had in mind and what I ended up doing are two very different things.

I have been wanting to paint Charli's room for years but haven't made time to do it. The truth is Mark hates to paint almost as much as he hates to do yard work, which he does do but he is never excited about it. Anyway Charli's room is still the beautiful shade of Bo Peep yellow that I had chosen for her nursery. It is the most perfect shade of yellow and I adore it...Charli however does not. When I woke up Saturday morning I was ready to take Charli to shop for a completely new comforter set and then take her to the local hardware store and buy paint samples and paint boards so we could try the color out on her wall, at various times during the day to see which looked best. The birds were singing, it was going to be a great day. I opened the door to Charli's bedroom and my heart sank. I was furious. Her bedroom was a disaster. I have spent the better part of the past two days of my life in my daughter's room. There was yelling, screaming, and I am pretty sure I threw a few things. I get that it wasn't very adult behavior but I was mad, and whether I counted to ten or ten thousand it wasn't going to make a difference. I had bought Charli a few new dresses, one that she really wanted but I wasn't that crazy about it. The dress that she just had to have was laying on her floor. Her entire floor was covered with clothes and her dresser drawers were completly empty.

I am going to be brutally honest here. My room was seldom clean when I was a kid. At one point three of us shared a room. I have shared a room most of my life. Charli has never had to share a room with anyone. I am not a neat freak by any means. In fact my office right now looks like a war zone with spools of ribbon as the weapon of choice. It isn't messy though...it's creative genius at work and you can see 85...well ok maybe 75% of the floor because the rest is covered in various bins, and boxes of ribbon. It is organized chaos. Charli's room was just gross and nearly 2 weeks away from possibly being Hoarders worthy. Okay that might have been a slight exaggeration but still...

I have been asking myself how in the world did this happen? When did my sweet, precious toddler with her chubby cheeks and toothy grin, who replied yes Mommy to my every request to pick up her toys, turn into this...unappreciative, selective hearing, bordering on defiant, messy to the extreme tweenzilla?! Charli is a great kid. She is funny, sweet, compassionate, and very fashionable. She is her own person and has never been afraid to own it. Charli doesn't lie...she confesses her sins like a catholic school girl. Things I don't even know she has done she will just spew it all out like someone slipped truth serum into her water. I just don't understand it. I felt so disrespected this weekend. I know we are just going though a phase, and perhaps her messy room might be the least of it as we approach her teen years. Who knows maybe this is our fault...mine and Mark's. Charli has never been required to make her bed or to do any chores really. She has to walk her dog and give him water but that is it. She has to keep her stuff together for school, and gather her uniforms but she really has no real responsibilities, other than putting away her clothes, which obviously she does not. I get that she is only 9 but I had more responsibility than she does when I was her age. Raising a kid today is very different. They grow up so much faster and I realize that perhaps we need to start making some changes. I love her with every fiber of my being and I am so blessed to be her mother. We have always said that she is our gift from God and how we raise her is our gift back to Him. We are her parents and not her friends, not at this point in her life. Maybe I should try that speech my mom used to give us... "As long as you live under my roof, and put your feet under my table and I put clothes on your back, you will do what I tell you to do!" It sounds powerful huh LOL... I think I will mull it over while I sip my red wine.