Where do I begin? It’s an adventure raising not only a toddler boy but my real excitement these days seems to be from raising a Tween Girl.  Ms. Tween Princess we’ll call her is really growing up.  I simply adore my miracle baby BUT she’s so hard to be around sometimes…..

First off, I may be the mom who wants to know too much about her life but I say “Oh Well”.  Growing up my mother wasn’t that involved in what I did, wasn’t a “Room Parent”, didn’t Volunteer, you get what I mean. I know not everyone aspires to do those things but I saw those kids doing good in school, I noticed things growing up.  Now it wasn’t my moms fault either.  She was raising three children alone and was busy working to take care of us.  As a adult I see that but as a young girl I didn’t feel too close to my mother and I’ve made it another job of mine to make sure my daughter knows I’m here for her and that she can come to me with anything.  She doesn’t seem to like this from time to time.  “Mom, my others friends mothers don’t ask them these questions” or “Really?”.  I’ve come to find it’s about balance.

I don’t want this 11 year old to feel any kind of pain and I KNOW that is unrealistic so I’ve slowly come to find she needs to get hurt, sometimes more than once and learn to stand up for herself.  She did so well this week with an incident (I find completely pathetic BUT I’m not a 11 year old girl) where these two girls were angry at her for something she didn’t do.  The most I did was explain two things to her….

1. The girls are either jealous of her in some way or very unhappy that they have to give her a hard time to feel better.
2. If they continually are rude to her she can tell them “You don’t have to like me but you need to stop being rude to me.”

It worked.  She had a great week at school and I worried as I’ve found at my young age of 36 has become something I do well.  Worry I need to do less of because she keeps showing me she can take care of herself and will let me know when she needs me.  That is nice, she doesn’t hide from me but does talk to me.

Ms. Tween Princess has also gotten a wonderful attitude as of late.  I do believe yelling is another form of natural talking when I speak to her.  We’ve had to explain it’s not acceptable.  I also have to remember by 13 I was not a model child and she’s doing great in school and for the most part listens.

I’m finding that this journey is getting harder with her.  That she really is growing up but still so much a little girl who wants me to lay with her every night still.  My hope is that I’m doing the best that I can with her as my mother did with me.  We can only give what we’ve got.  I need her to know that I’m here for her which I’ve done.

My saving grace is that I have friends with Teen girls who’ve let me know that it will get worse but they let me know with Love.  They also explain girl behavior gets better, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  I’m sure I will post about my not so great days with her but there will also be the great ones too.  That’s life….learning and growing and it never stops, even when you become a mom….That’s when the real adventure began for me learning to balance work & home and now learning to balance Two kids and not over extending myself in commitments.