My Daughter Is Strong

My daughter is one of my heroes.  She constantly amazes me.  She makes me want to be a better person.  She inspires me to be stronger.

She and I are very much alike.  Very much.  We are more alike than she wants to see right now.  She is a teenager and I don’t blame her for that.  She is all about finding her independence right now so I won’t spoil it for her and point out how much she is just like me!

The difference is that she is STRONGER!   She is like a stronger version of me!  It’s weird to see actually.  Ha.  But I’m so happy for her.  We are alike in that she is extremely empathetic.  She is kind and supportive and loyal.  But she isn’t gonna take anyone’s crap and that makes me want to jump for joy!  She got her strength from her dad, no doubt.  It is a good combination if you ask me. :)

She posted this video on facebook recently.  It sounds exactly like the stuff she is always saying to her friends about boys!

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I love that she gets this.  I’m hoping she can live it herself.  There is a boy that she can’t seem to let go of though and he is not respectful of her.  I think she sees it but you know, he’s hot or something.  lol

I hope that she remembers this and chooses wisely.  I pray that she can see it all more clearly than I ever did.  I pray that she demands respect from her future husband and never has to deal with all the heartache I have.

She makes me proud :)

My Teenagers

There are things I want to tell my kids / help them with/ guide them in the right direction…

I need a way other than straight out telling them because I sound like a nag cuz I’ve said it before and they tune me out.

I wish I could find an inspirational website or book for them.  I am a total book lover and I’m sure some exist that could help but how to even find such a book.

My 13 year old is chasing a boy that is a jerk.  And he doesn’t like her which is painfully obvious.  If he ever replies to one of her texts she thinks that all is well and that he likes her.  And of course he tells her he does but then doesn’t reply to any of her texts for days on end. He lives on a farm and says he is too busy to text.   But other friends have told her he texts them.  And he shows her texts to others and laughs that she is chasing him.  I seriously do not like this kid.

She has liked him for a long time.  After Christmas she asked him what he got for Christmas.  He said “a hand job”.  Yep.  Isn’t he awesome?  Some of this I know from spot checking her phone – which she knows I do but sometimes she forgets to delete everything. ha.  Some of it she tells me.  Some of it another mom tells me cuz her daughter tells her everything.  Thanks to this kid, I have had to explain to my daughter what a hand job was.  Yep.  I did because she didn’t know and I certainly didn’t want her to google it!  Agh!

She says she knows he’s  mean, but he’s nice to her.  I told her I thought she deserved a guy that is nice to everyone, not just her.  (Cuz we all know that will wear off and he’ll be mean to her too! )  She said he’s everything she wants, except that he’s rude.  How can he be everything she wants and BE RUDE?   (Don’t get me started on how this is all my fault since I put up with her dad for too long and he was mean and rude and isnt that a great male role model for her!?)

And her new best friend is a total drama queen and so controlling.  Kid2 stands up to her which I’m glad about – but that means there is constant drama with these two.  I want her to go back to her old BFF she’s had since kindergarten.  Wow 7th grade was a hard year for these girls.  It shook up all of their relationships.  :(

So I need a book for her to read.  Some great teenage romance where the girl likes a jerk and ignores the nice guy, but then figures out she got it backwards.  Anyone know of a book with that story that is suitable for a 13 year old?  Is there a place that you can search for books by the plot?  That would be awesome.

And my 15 year old is a social outcast.  Sad.  She hasn’t done ONE thing with friends ALL summer!  She doesn’t even try.  It makes me sad for her.  She acts like it doesn’t bother her.  But then she has occasional meltdowns where it all comes out.  Times like this are when I wish we weren’t from such a small town.

The girls she used to hang out with in grade school are now the popular crowd.  Apparently she didn’t make the cut once high school began.  The other group is a group that I don’t want her to hang out with and she doesn’t want to either.  They are smoking and swearing and hanging out in town way too late at night.  She is in the middle.  She is friends with everyone she says.  And when school is in that works ok because she talks to everyone at school.  But she isn’t included in parties and anything outside of school.  She really is fun and sweet.  She is immature for her age.  I know that.  And she doesn’t do well at socializing.  What I mean is – she kind of just watches and listens and follows along when she is in a group of friends.  She doesn’t really contribute to the conversations or show her personality at all.  I think it’s easy to forget she is even there.  That is what I see happening.

I’ve talked to her a lot about talking too and contributing to the conversation.  We’ve talked about things she could say when she doesn’t know what to say…  I don’t know how to help her and it hurts my heart.

Is there a book that helps her figure this out?  A website?  I can tell her to text people and just ask how their summer is going – but she doesn’t do it.  I tell her to invite someone over to swim, she says she can’t think of anyone to invite…  sigh.

“He Never Cared…Before”

“He never cared about that before.”

“Well he does now.”

“For now.”

This was a conversation between kid2 and I.  Hubby still hasn’t given her electronics back.  It’s been since Saturday morning.  It is now Thursday morning.  He is a tough cookie.  I wanted to give them back to her Tuesday night.  She got her feelings hurt pretty badly by some of her “friends” and I knew she really wanted to talk to her BFF.  They have actually been calling each other.  Using the phone to talk to each other?!?  Imagine that! lol  But it was too late to call that night and she was crying and ugh.  Hubby still said no.

I think he is right.  He is tougher than I have been with this stuff.  But notice that they will listen to him and they treat me like crap so I guess I’ve been doing it wrong :(  I need to get tougher.  I asked him to at least give them back to her for a short while that night.  Nope.  He wouldn’t budge.

The next day Kid2 and I were talking about it and she said she didn’t know why he was upset anyway. She said she didn’t do anything to HIM.  I said no, you did something to me.  And she pointed out that he never cared about that before.

And she is right.  I’ve said many times that its no wonder my kids talk back to me like they do – they see their dad treat me like crap.

“He never cared about that before.”

That sentence very easily translates to

“He never cared about you before.”

Yea.

Ouch.

Her last comment got me.  “For now.”  And she wasn’t being sassy, we were just talking.  I don’t blame her for thinking that it won’t last.

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Dear God,  Please make this last.  Amen.

I am Grateful for my Husband

I am Grateful for my Husband.

And I am so happy to be able to type that sentence and mean it with all my heart.

A few examples of his recent awesomeness:

– Kid2 has been really challenging lately.  She needs to constantly be doing something with one of her friends or her whole world falls apart.  If she had her way, she would never be home.  Or at least not be here without a friend here too.  We live in the country, so her friends who live close to each other in town get together more often, she feels left out, the drama follows.  Hubby calls it her “needy friends phase”.  Dear God I hope it’s a phase that ends quickly.  It’s exhausting.  SO, instead of answering her, I started telling her to ask her dad.  I knew he wouldn’t say yes nearly as often as I was and I figured it was his turn to deal with it.  I needed a break from it!   LOL   That was probably the best thing for the situation.  He does say no a lot.  He says yes sometimes.  He gets to see how it has been for me dealing with this by myself for so long.   He used to say “Ask your mom.”  Now he is on the other end of that and it has been a wake up call for him.

It gave him a whole new perspective – Which I think led him to deal with Kid1 in a way he has never stepped up and done before….

– Kid1 is getting quite bold lately in telling me no.  She just gets mean and defiant and says NO.  And to her that is the end of it.  I have been trying to deal with this consistently and in different ways but she has been winning unfortunately.  And she knows it.  She told me NO yesterday.  Hubby came home shortly afterwards and asked why she wasn’t doing what I asked her to do.  I told him why.  HE MADE HER DO IT. She threw her fit, she cried and moaned.  She yelled that her life was horrible, she yelled all sorts of things but he didn’t back down.  She knew she wasn’t going to win and she finally gave in and went to get ready.  (What we wanted her to do btw is to help hubby’s sister prep food for the concession stand.  Sis-in-law needed help, Kid1 gets paid to do this, she’s helped before so she knows what she is doing, and it would take about 2 hours and she needs to get off the couch! so we wanted her to go.)

I was so proud of hubby.  He was demanding without being angry.  He (mostly) kept his cool which is pretty darn hard when your teenager is hurling insults at you.

– Kid2 was very sassy and rude to me when I picked her up from track Saturday morning.  Just horrible.  We got home and she came in the house with an attitude.  Hubby asked what was going on, I told him, he took her electronics and she still didn’t get them back.

– There are more examples that I’d love to tell you all about but it is already later than I want it to be!   You’ll have to stop over for a cup of coffee and we can gab :)

He has my back now.  I don’t feel like it’s all on me.  We are sharing this responsibility.  It is so awesome.

(And he has been taking the $$ issues seriously finally too and even talked to the kids about how we’ve been spending too much and blah blah blah when the kids had a fit when I packed sandwiches for the ballgames instead of buying supper at the concession stand.  Before Hubby always wanted to just buy it there and would do that even if I had packed food.  Of course it’s yummy, but it’s not cheap!)

I feel so…. cared for.

That’s all I ever wanted.

Dear God,  Please make this last.  Amen.

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Oh... and I got to have sex last night.  HA HA That could be 
another reason I'm feeling so grateful for this man. ;)

One More Good Thing: Parenting Together

One more thing – Kid1 was really being rude and mouthing off the other day.

HE STUCK UP FOR ME.

He told her she would NOT talk to her mother that way.  Are you kidding me?  And he keeps doing that!  It’s awesome.  He would never do that before.  Before he had this awesome parenting idea where he said “You do it your way, I’ll do it mine.”  Yea, that works.  Not.  Now though – I feel like we are actually in it together!  He actually steps up to the plate and dishes out some discipline.  When they aren’t listening, he makes them turn off the TV and get busy doing homework or whatever they were told. (Before he would just sit and watch it with them! No joke.) .

Kid2 wasn’t allowed to go to a movie night at her friends cuz she had attitude and didn’t help at all that day – we were all outside mowing and weeding strawberries etc.  She was told to help several times.  But even when she did finally come outside, she just complained and moved at turtle speed.  That was his decision completely, I never even brought it up!

He is actually parenting his kids in a way that makes sense.  Before he would not ever back me up.  He was the oh so fun dad that never made them do anything – until he got ticked that they never did anything and blew his top.  This is so much better!

OK.  I promise I’m done now.  I have to get to work.  I will ignore the half written posts that are me complaining about him and just focus on the positive today :)

Rough Weekend with the Kids

This kinda sums it up.  lol  They were opinionated and rebellious.  I didn’t handle it very well.  Yea, let’s just leave it at that.

Image Source: http://www.someecards.com/

The Plan for the Teenager Is Working!

This is a follow-up to The Plan for the Teenager.

Just found out that Kid1 is getting a 94 in Algebra 2!  Woo hoo!  She has not gotten higher than a C in math since she started Junior High.  AND she has an 87 in science!  Woo hoo!  Last marking period she got a D.

Volleyball season is over so she has more time so that helps I’m sure.  But she has been so much more organized since I made her use that checklist.  Yes, I’d like just a little credit.  Ha.  But I’ll just say that here, not to her :)

She also usually has clean clothes picked out for the mornings and there are fewer melt downs for sure! (she is now in charge of her own laundry).

I’m very proud of her.  She still complains about the checklist sometimes and it has changed a little since we started it.  She doesn’t have to show it to me every day anymore either.  I still ask to see it occasionally – but only if I think she is lying about getting her list done.  Just asking is usually enough to kick her into gear so she gets it done.

I’m very proud of her.  And she is proud of herself.  She was showing off her binder and its color coded sections a few days ago.  I swear she is even writing neater than she used to.  I think it is because she is proud of her organized notebook!

Parenting Fail

My parents failed in this area.

My kid’s parents are failing in this area.

source:pinterest

This was not a family tradition I wanted to continue.  I have seen the results.  I am the result.  Low self-esteem, insecure, indecisive, codependent, the list goes on.  I need to fix this NOW.  How do I fix it?

The Plan for The Teenager

On Sunday morning before Kid1 got up and before everyone else got home, I made a plan for the teenager that creates havoc in our home.  :)

I love her dearly but wow she is difficult. The weekend was so nice with her.  I really enjoyed spending time with her and it was wonderful to have her talking to me instead of yelling and stomping and the rest.  I really want that to continue.  So I sat down at the computer and typed out all the things that we are constantly at odds about.

I googled teenager chores, teenagers behavior, etc.  There are MANY other people trying to figure this out to.  Glad to know I’m not alone.  There are a lot of lists and charts and schedules and contracts out there.  None of them seemed to fit tho.  So I decided to make my own.  It’s more like a checklist and it clearly states what we expect from her.  I figured that to make this work I have to start with the basics and then perhaps be able to add things as time goes by.  I only put on this list things that we already have issues with.  Nothing new.  That was hard because I have lots more that I’d love to add!

The goal of this is for her to be more responsible.  She knows what needs to be done but rarely does it without me nagging and without her throwing a fit.  It creates too much tension.  She is easily distracted.  As am I.  Lists help me.  Maybe they will help her too.  I want to involve hubby so he knows the plan and will back me up.  I have to come up with the plan first though – he hates being all “official” about stuff.  Well winging it has not really worked with Kid1.  There is just too much nagging and yelling and chaos with her.  It’s out of control.  This may or may not work but it’s worth a try.  I hope we can stick with it long enough to make a difference.

I showed it to her this morning.  She moaned.  She said I was treating her like a baby.  I disagree.  This is definitely the most grown-up to do list we have ever had.  We read over it together.  She smirked the whole way through it.  She agreed that these were reasonable requests.  The one she was most worried about was not being able to fight with her siblings.  Ha.  So we’ll see.  She completed her daily list  for today already.  Yippee.

In case you are interested, here is the plan for the teenager. :)

Daily

_____Homework

_____Show mom papers and tell about upcoming tests

_____Tell mom about any schedule changes

_____Volleyball uniform need washed?

_____Does the dishwasher need done?

_____Clean up shoes by the door (only 1 pair on rug)

_____Put dirty clothes in hamper

_____Put clean clothes in drawers

_____Hang up towel in bathroom (right after shower!)

_____Throw away garbage

_____Pick out clothes for tomorrow

Weekly

_____Empty garbage can

_____Laundry

_____Check Grades Online

_____Help with housework on weekend

Weekly Allowance: $____________
(Parents will change this as needed based on seasons – volleyball, football games etc.)

Unacceptable behavior:

• Not completing chores
• A bad attitude
• Yelling at family
• Fighting with siblings
• Not being honest about homework or tests
• Waiting until right before a project is due to start it.

Consequences:

• Allowance reduced for incomplete chores or bad attitude about them.
• Lose Ipod
• Lose cell phone
• No TV
• Be grounded.

Instagram: Busted

Kid2 asked me if she could set up an instagram account.  I said probably, but let me check it out first.

I created an account this morning and figured out that she already has an account!  She actually set it up the day before she asked.

So I posted this picture on instagram just for her….