I’ve been joking about Zoë growing up to be too much like me for so long, I forget some times that humour is generally based, in some part, on honesty.
For the last couple of months, I’ve been calling her a teenager. Truth is, lots of people, even her pediatrician and a friend of mine that had never met her before have remarked about her moodiness. Add in her recent affinity for slamming doors in my face, draining all of my vodka bottles and filling them with water and shouting “I hate you!” as she stomps away in a huff because I won’t let her get her belly button pierced and you have all of the makings of a truly exceptional mother-daughter relationship.
Not.
She’s always been rather abrupt and transparent in her moodiness – much like I am. And if some thing’s pissing her off, it’s generally certifiable that she will attempt to ruin your motherfucking life until you remedy the situation. This is the real reason I keep the knives out of reach.
Honestly, I’m ill- (yet, maybe best) prepared for when she surpasses three-teen and actually enters tween status or, shudder, the gaping mouth of hell I estimate her early teens will be. I can fantasize all I like about her being Rory and I being Loralei, but it doesn’t mean that we’ll sip coffee together in a run-down diner where I may or may not meet the man of my dreams (and I may or may not be able to accept the fact that he wears a baseball cap backwards. [But may still wanna nail his nephew next to the doughnuts. {ahem}]).
More so, even though it’s all fun and games until her father has an anyeurism for me to joke about her becoming promiscuous and a ball-busting sexual force to be chased after in her early twenties, I don’t really want that for her.
I want her to fall in love, organically. To feel some level of comfort, or at the very least, exhibit the intelligence needed, to come to me when it’s time for the deed to be done so we can discuss her options as far as wrapping up whatever tool may be coming in her direction. I want her to be happy with the choices she makes about lovers and those she loves. I want her to crush hard on boys who she thinks might not give her the time of day, just simply because if she doesn’t become comfortable with the leap, she might never know what it’s like to float when they do like her a really lot back.
Like her mother has.
Kids grow up earlier and faster and by the time I’m arguing against her having a cell phone or a wrist phone or a mind-chip, sexting will be a thing of the past, considered tame. So, I fully expect it to start sooner than I expect it to start.
But not this soon.
