Lost- Chronicles of a Mom with a teenage girl

I have been absentee from my life for the last week because I have been lost. Lost in a web of pain, fear, memories. ..
I have a thirteen year old daughter who overnight went from being a sweet and loving young lady to being an angry, hateful, spiteful entitled animal.

She wants to push the boundaries that we as parents put in place to keep her safe and to shape her into a warm, smart, caring and accountable adult and that I completely understand but she refuses to accept any of the responsibilities that come with the freedom she longs for. I try very hard to understand. I remember the emotional turmoil and anger, I was a teenage girl. Hormones suck and friends understand better then I do, I get it.

I talk to her openly and candidly, I accept her friends, I allow her their constant presence in my house even though I often long for a quiet night. I ask only in return that she take responsibility for her friends.  I am not a maid. When I clean up 20 water bottles with just sips out of them, popsicle wrappers, popsicle sticks, half eaten fruit swarming with fruit flies, slushies in the bathroom, dirty laundry everywhere I want to cry. I make deals, give ultimatums, believe the promises only to be disappointed on a daily basis. My sugar and spice and everything nice girl turns to fire and ice and won’t think twice about accountability or consequences if she is not getting her own way.

Don’t I have a responsibility as a parent to love her enough to make her see how important it is for her to respect herself and her family? Apparently not.

According to her friends mother I am wrong. I need to just accept it. What will be will be. That is basically what she said when she showed up at my door tonight with my daughter who had been missing for hours. I had called and messaged her with no response. As a parent if her child were here I would have let her know she was safe.

I had reached my tolerance level this afternoon when I asked my daughter to go. The blatant disregard for me became too much. Being cursed at, talked down to, told that she was going do whatever she wanted whenever she wanted.

Her friends talk to me. They are here for days on end. I know what lazy parenting is doing for them and it is nothing good.
I miss my little girl. I realize that I may lose her for a little bit because right now I need to be more of a parent and less of a friend. It is my responsibility to make sure she is safe, not for me to be popular with her. I need to teach her that bad actions have consequences,  not rewards. Honestly is rewarded. Accountability,  learn it. It is a lesson I will teach everyday.  Love. I will love her to the ends of the earth no matter what, even the days when I don’t like her very much. I will teach her the importance of loving herself and being someone she can be proud of.

Maybe I won’t be cool or popular for awhile but I am tough, I will handle it. One day she will thank me, of that I am certain. 

Tonight when she came home expecting a fight I approached her with compassionate grace. I will thank a dear friend for that advice.

I am sad and heartbroken but I showed her that I love her enough to care about the person she comes. Trust me it would be so much easier to turn a blind eye. Parenting is not the easy way out but I refuse to believe it is the wrong way.

One day I will comfort this beautiful girl when her own child breaks her heart into a thousand pieces and I hope that she will step up and be the person she was raised to be.

Goodnight friends,
the uncool mom

Thousand Acre Heart-Part 12

I am eating cookies in bed, that is how my day went. After a long day I was relaxing and chatting with Kirk online (he is up North in Kearl Lake). We were both in a playful mood, our conversation was very fun and flirty until Morgan informed me that the coldroom and laundry room was flooded. Instant buzz kill. It was pretty tense here for awhile but equipped with Kirks snowmobile boots, a fire poker 40 soaking towells and my phone (for frantically texting Kirk) I managed to fix the pump and twart any further disaster.  I am not happy about the mess but on the bright side, because of the floor drain in the laundry room the main rec room area was not affected and being forced to clean out the cold room is a good thing. See Kirk I am not even going to mention who filled the cold room with unnecessary crap!!

So to continue where I left you I frantically called Kirk and told him to get there fast and then I called my Mom. Dr Clague said they would induce me at 5:30. Between 5:30 and 6:30 nothing was happening. We were all just joking around with the nurses. At 6:30 I started to feel a significant amount of discomfort and got quiet immediately. I threw up in the bathroom which was a sure sign of hard labour. When the contactions began they were one on top of another. In the same fashion as my other pregnancies I went from zero to sixty in minutes. I guess Kirk mistook my sudden silence for boredom because he said to the nurse “when does labor start?” I was breathing mid contraction and looked at the nurse wide-eyed as if to say “is he friggin kidding me?

The nurse asked Kirk if there was somewhere he needed to be. Poor Kirk had missed Morgans birth so he really just didn’t know what to expect. All he had really seen of actual labour was exaggerated on tv and in movies.

He was great at keeping cold wash clothes on my forehead. It was unbearably warm and trying to keep me cool was a full time job for Mom and Kirk. I started pushing shortly after seven. I was expecting Haley to come into the world in a few pushes. I was getting the regular encouragement “she’s right there, we see her head, she’s coming” I was pushing for everything I was worth. Let’s just say if pushing were an Olympic sport I was going for gold. I thought that Kirk should go to the other side of the room prepared to catch. I pictured her flying across the room like a football.

I recall the doctor saying something about her being stuck. I remember thinking WTF does that mean? I wanted to ask but could barely muster a breath between contractions let alone a question. Turns out her umbilical chord was wrapped around her neck. Once removed she made a speedy entry into our world! Haley Jade Catherine DeBay was born @ 7:45 pm on April 29, 2004.

She was healthy but earlier then the doctors had originally thought and in a certain amount of distress from me pushing with a chord wrapped around her. She was creamy white…full of vermix. She looked like someone had slathered her up with cold cream. She had a headful of dark curls and a beautiful button nose.

Our first picture with her she is in an incubator. I felt completly different about her then I had with Morgan and Jeffrey initially. I felt very protective, I guess that is definitely a parental trait but it lacked that warm and fuzzy feeling because I so badly wanted to make her strong enough to bring her home. I am sure anyone who has ever had a preemie has felt this on a much larger scale. Her first month, even after bringing her home she was so sleepy I had to wake her for feedings and coax her to feed. It felt like a job. She didn’t look at me, she didn’t brighten at the sound of my voice. I silently worried a lot about not bonding with her the way I did Morgan. After the first four weeks once I chubbed her up and she became more alert things changed instantly. She has been an ongoing joy!

I always felt very differently about my girls. Morgan in glorious teenhood likes to say we love Haley more, we always take her side. Truth is I love Haley differently then I do Morgan. She has always been smart and fiercely independent. She has a very analytical mind like her Dad. Morgan is softer, led more by her heart. As smart as she is I worry about her being led astray by her caring and trusting ways. I want her to know how beautiful she is. I want her know that she is smart and that she can be anything she wants. I want her to know that SHE is the person to impress and please. I want her not to seek validation from friends and boys. I want her to pat herself on the back for a job well done and when she fails I want her to have the strength to get back up and try again. Haley at 9 has these tools. She hasn’t let the world beat her down. She told me one day that she will never be able to please everyone but she is happy being herself. Jeffrey and Morgan are a lot alike. They know what they want and they can dream a life for themselves but sometimes overlook the harsh realities that can get in the way of those dreams. Dreams take hard work to make them happen! I heard a saying recently about a mothers constant challenge “the right mix of kindness and dicipline” I think all of my children will agree that I can be a good and fun friend but I will never sugar coat the realties of life!! Life is hard. Prepare!!

This is short and I apologize. I am catching up from a whirlwind visit with my family in Nova Scotia and my new granddaughter. Sometimes I still have to pinch myself to see if it is all real.

P.S for those of you twitterbugs, follow @1000acreheart

Thanks for dropping by, be back soon. I will leave you with a sneak peek of beautiful Gracie. ♥

Orange Rhino Challenge

April 2-5

Things have quieted down and my “Monster Girl” has returned to normal. She remains grounded which I am quite proud that I stood my ground on that one. She tried to push the issue and change my mind but I remained calm and focused! Everyone is pulling together and doing their part. I haven’t even been yelling at traffic, I know it is not the same thing but my kids always get a kick out of it and it is not really a good thing. A calm, collected driver wins every time. When I allow myself to get worked up on the road it spills over into everything I do!

I went on a school field trip this week with a group of grade three students, I wasn’t feeling myself and have had waves up exhaustion. I am anxiously awaiting the birth of princess Gracie and I have not yelled once…except to call the girls to dinner.

Morgan was late getting up this morning and when I went into her room she said “Don’t yell at me!” I replied “Mommy doesn’t yell anymore!”

Hopefully the remainder of day three will be a success. Wish me luck.

Orange Rhino Challenge

http://theorangerhino.com/

I heard about The Orange Rhino Challenge from my friend Sandra. My first thought was that I don’t really need this but then I recalled accidentally calling Sandra a couple of days prior while my 13 year old and I were having a screaming match. I do try really hard to keep my cool but I am noticing more and more that my teenager is screaming and yelling. Chalk it up to the age or hormones but it is not right and when I lose control and start yelling it is a bad situation gotten worse. The longer I refrain from yelling the calmer and more in control of the situation I feel. Once I lose it we are not getting anywhere. It doesn’t make me heard any more then the fourteen times I asked her calmly to do something but what it does is escalate the argument to a whole new level and now we have a hormonal out of control adolescent and a crazed mom. It is extremely draining. So needless to say I decided to join the challenge and journey along with my longtime friend Sandra who is working very hard to give up her habit of yelling. Our goal is to go 365 days without yelling.

Friday March 29, 2013 Day 1

I started the challenge this evening and things went well. I was just chilling with the kids, it was a holiday weekend, I had no obligations the next day and we all got to sleep in. The kids went to bed when they were tired so there was no heated bedtime yelling. In the bag….goodnight!

Saturday March 30,

I had a nice sleep in with my husband who made it home for Easter weekend for the first time in five years. I made a lazy brunch and we curled up watching movies. My oldest got bored so I took her to meet friends. I felt relaxed all day and very little pressure. I was even conscious when I was out not to yell manically at bad drivers Lol. We had a nice dinner, picked Morgan up, relaxed and cuddled on the couch. In the bag. Goodnight!

Sunday March 30th Day 2

Happy Easter. Our eight year old was so excited for Easter but it was after 10 am when she woke us up. Well rested I made us a big breakfast while Kirk took the girls to Sobey’s to pick up some last minute dinner fixins and came back with my favorite treat, an extra large black 711 coffee with two hazelnut shots. By the time they returned I had breakfast almost ready and all the pre-prep for Turkey dinner complete. Kirk went downstairs to watch hockey, Morgan played on the laptop and Haley played outside with friends. I was busy all day basting the turkey, doing laundry and wiping Haley’s dirty footprints off the floor. As irritating as it was I kept asking her nicely to take her shoes off on the map…calmly. By the fifth time she got it. We had a couple friends over for dinner and a couple glasses of wine. When they left, Kirk, Haley and I hung out singing tunes while Morgan retreated to the basement. Kirk and I stayed up after the girls went to bed and at some point had a disagreement, or more a difference of opinion  Sometimes I forget that Kirk is entitled to his own opinions and I don’t always have to agree and it doesn’t always have to be an argument trying to get him to see it my way.   I felt strongly that my opinion was the only right one and I found myself feeling argumentative so I put myself to bed.

Mon April 1. Day 3

Last day of March Break and Kirk went back to Kearl Lake this afternoon. We had had a good and relaxing weekend and I was feeling very confident about not yelling and everyone getting a long. Haley stated pushing my buttons and testing my patience early in the afternoon with her whining and bugging me to get her neighbor friend. I told her they could play outside only. Within minutes they were in the house and they sounded like a herd of elephants in her room. I was feeling testy and I wanted to yell at her so I texted my friend Sandra for support. We had to leave for voice lessons so I called Morgan upstairs from the basement where she was on a TV and uncombed hair marathon. I asked her to unload the dishwasher to which she replied “You called me upstairs for that? I was in the middle of watching TV!!! Why should I do your job?” I very calmly informed her that it would be in her best interest to do as I asked and we left.

We returned to the same mouthy teenager. She had unloaded the dishwasher but she was in a foul mood. Haley dared to ask a question while she was absorbed in a show and she lost it. When I asked her to stop she lost it on me. She had a very loud tantrum and the calmer I was the louder she became. She hated her sister, I was blind and always saw Haley’s side, we should have gone out of the room and left her alone. Loud, louder, louder, she was out of control but I kept my cool. I gave her to the count of five to go calm down in her room before I took her Roller Derby practice away for the entire week. She left, mouthing the whole way but immediately came back to yell some more only to be told calmly again to go to her room. This time she slammed and punched the basement door and was banging the walls upstairs. I came upstairs and tried again to calmly tell her to settle down in her room. At one point I had to hold her arms and tell her to settle down. Somewhere in there is my sweet little girl, I don’t know what happened within the course of a day to bring out this monster. Somewhere between her hurling insults at me and bad mouthing her sister I lost it and yelled. I caught myself really quickly but to be fair I did it. I felt defeated. I managed to finally get her to go to her room and calm down. After a bit we talked and I found out she was in a big fight with her friends and it was weighing heavily on her. I explained to her that our home was our “Safe Place” and she could not scream and yell at us and smash around. Tomorrow I will start over, tomorrow will be a better day!

Head on over to Sandra’s blog to cheek her progress. http://www.mylittleboyblue.com

This is a song me and my co-workers used to sing when we worked in Sales at Leon’s Furniture. During Sales we would be crazy busy and we worked twelve hour shifts and sometimes we encountered some trying customers. I sing this song in my head when I am trying to stay calm and not yell! It’s cheaper then wine.