I finally understand the "egg shell" comment... !

Okay, as a teen I never really understood why my family would get mad and tell me they were "tired of walking on egg shells around me..." . Honestly I thought "how self absorbed, this is not about you, I am in crisis..." LOL - seriously though, I didn't understand the reference. Now with my own tween experiencing her own versions of personal crisis and finding her mother to be the perfect object for torture I TOTALLY GET IT! I come home from work and she is usually at the table doing homework - (since she is grounded until she is caught up) I look at her face to see what type of night we are going to have... here are the two main options:
1. We make eye contact and she smiles and says "hi mom, did you have a good day?" To which I smile, sigh in relief and we proceed with small talk (I still stay somewhat braced as usually she will hit me up with a request for money or something like that) OR
2. We make eye contact and she grimaces and says "why are you looking at me, why do you always look at me, I didn't do anything, this is not fair, you ruin my life....etc." Then I make a beeline out of the room and ask Kirk if he wants to leave and go play some tennis :)

In all honesty, things were pretty yucky the past couple of weeks... Tyler made a lot of bad choices in school and at home and I had to be firm and strict and all of those things you have to do to save your children from self destruction. So grounded, no computer, no phone, and limited contact with the outside world... finally, we are talking civilly again and she is getting the point that "i love you and can I have five bucks" do not belong as one permanently connected phrase - takes away from the sentiment :)

Tyler is catching up with her homework... she is one day away from two full weeks with no missing assignments and her grades are coming up. She has decent grades for the past two weeks, but her overall average still stinks. She will earn her phone back if the Friday grade check has no missing assignments and her grades are all As and Bs... she will also be off of her grounding... doesn't mean she is going anywhere but the possibility is there...

Tyler is going to be on the summer swim team at a local swim center. She will have four days a week of practice and meets every Saturday for the months of June and July. We are all looking forward to that fun. She is taking a break from tennis, for whatever reason she is rebelling from the sport her dad and I love to participate in (not a surprise I suppose) but we did tell her that she could do any sport, she just had to be active - so swimming it is!

So, mom, I am sorry for making you feel like you had to walk on egg shells... Hopefully I learned from experiencing your parenting what to do when she gets into another downward spiral in her teenage roller coaster... she is on an upswing right now, happy, smiling, being nice and HELPFUL, (knocking on my wood desk - sounds like laminate) so I will choose to enjoy this one day at a time and I will keep tentatively checking her face when I walk into the house at the end of the day... of course once she has her phone back she will start calling me again to see if I am on my way home and I can feel out the situation before I get in the house... I am hoping Tyler's teen angst won't last as long as it seems mine was... I would rather enjoy being her mother than dread what will happen next. So I will have to remind myself every day to take this one day at a time with her...

In talking to a friend who is a bit older than me, I realized a few things I had forgotten already as a mother... my friend was telling me that she couldn't remember her mother hugging her after she was about 10 or so... the context had to do with things going on with her mom now etc. but it got me thinking about when I had last hugged Tyler. While it had not been years, it certainly had been a while. When we fight I don't always want to hug her and we had been fighting a lot... so I decided I was going to hug Tyler at least once a day. Now at first Tyler resisted a bit or would ask me for money while I hugged her which made me mad... but we have gotten past that and every night before we go to bed (except Thursday unless she stays up to wait for me) and every morning before I leave for work we hug. I hope this make a difference because I even hug her when I am mad at her... she doesn't always hug me back, but last night she came in and hugged me while I was in bed watching TV - it had been a long time since she had initiated hugging me too. I am guessing we will be okay (and I tell myself that every day).

So for today, no egg shells and I have class so I won't see her when I get home, she will be asleep...so Thursday, March 26, 2009 is a good day... two phone conversations and a talk in the morning and we made it through a day without a fight or clash of any kind... ! :)