Teens, Part 2

At what point does your darling, brilliant daughter start to give you the silent treatment?

Around here, apparently, when you tell her that she needs to be in bed early since she has a swim meet in the morning, you tell her to do her chore before it gets too hot, and her dad and brother are out of town on a Scout trip.

Geez, Louise. The Girl has basically given me the cold shoulder most of the week, unless she has needed a ride somewhere. But the last day or two has been icy.

It hurts, frankly.

She had asked earlier in the week if she could watch "Movie X" and I told her that yes, I thought she was old enough to undertand it [for the what it is worth column, it wasn't a naughty movie--just not Disney channel stuff.] So I tracked it down to watch last night, but after three nights late with friends in a row she no longer wanted to watch it.

Or she just didn't want to watch it with me.

I get it. She is becoming her own person, but I hope this rude and cold person is not the one she is becoming. Obviously she doesn't treat her friends like this--or she would have no friends. This must be special treatment for her mother.

I can see the advantage of having two parents at this age. She and Genius Golfer get on quite well, ninety percent of the time. The other ten percent is when she is being unreasonable or he is being overly protective or something. But generally they are pretty tight.

Maybe this behavior toward me is just her lashing out because she missed her dad.

I am surprised though how much more talking there is when The Boy is around. He is like the grease in the gears--helping everything to come together. But I am sure that will shift too when he is eleven days from being 15.