Blush, Mascara, and Tears

The morning before I took the preliminary oral exams that mark the transition from doctoral student ("Sure, you can pay tuition and say you're working on a doctorate") to doctoral candidate ("Okay, we believe you when you say that you can actually do this. Go ahead and start your dissertation now"), Twelve tried to sneak out of the house wearing makeup.

We don't have very many rules around here: Tasks are to be done, but enforcement is often lax, and Twelve is allowed - even encouraged - to go and do what she wants and needs to do with a minimum of adult interference. No makeup outside the house, though, is one of the big (only) ones.

For a smart kid, she's not very good at being sneaky. She often gives me the cursory side-hug and air kiss on her way out the door in the mornings, so I didn't suspect a thing when I innocently insisted on a real hug.

It was the scent of powder that gave her away.

I am not the most observant of persons; you have to gain/lose about fifty pounds or cut a foot off your hair if you want me to notice that something's different. R only shaves about once a week, and sometimes it takes me all day to notice that he has.

After I realized that Twelve was fully made up, I gathered my wits - I'm barely awake at this point, mind you - and told her to wash her face. Amidst frantic insistence (complete with impatient hand flapping gestures) that she had to leave right this instant, she moistened the corner of a washcloth and took a few cursory swipes. Gathering my wits further, I got the washcloth all the way wet and took some actually-effective swipes, at which point the tears began to fall. Gathering all remaining wits and steeling myself against the crying, I shooed her out the door to school.

Eleven minutes later, when she called to tell me she had arrived (according to our standard operating procedure), she may have seemed a bit resentful but had recovered her composure. Okay, we survived round one and made it to school on time. Excellent.

After school, I decided that I should probably take further action, so I told Twelve she was grounded from her iPod and everything else for the rest of the month. This was greeted with flippancy, bravado, and a whole lot of not-caring, with a good measure of what used to be called back-talk as garnish:

"It doesn't hurt anything!"

"Nobody cares!"

"What's the big deal about makeup anyway?"

She has some good points there, but I stuck to my guns:

"It hurts our relationship when you break my trust in you."

"In our culture, wearing makeup sends a message, and that is significant."

"When you are out in the world, you are representing me, so I have a vested interest in what you look like."

"It's not really about the makeup; it's about you breaking a rule and sneaking around."

She wasn't convinced. As far as I could tell, she didn't really care. She is particularly tired of all sentences that begin with "In our culture ... "

Okay, you've got to get through to her, I told myself firmly, in a very supportive and encouraging manner. Summoning courage, I bravely pointed at her hooded sweatshirt, her favorite blue one that she wears every day despite the fact that she owns six others: Give me that sweatshirt. Not quite sure what was happening, she took it off and handed it over. Scanning her room, I picked up her favorite sneakers and went to get a box. As she started to realize what was happening, I piled makeup and hair products and nail polishes into the box on top of sweatshirt and sneakers.

Finally, tears.

The brave front crumbled, and she was able to admit that she was wrong. She apologized for sneaking around, and asked why she isn't allowed to wear makeup. This part included the explanation that she had done it because she felt insecure about a zit on the tip of her nose that her friends had mentioned:

Me: Were they making fun of you?
Twelve: No.
Me: Were they trying to be mean to you?
Twelve: No.
Me: So ... they just mentioned the zit?
Twelve: Yeah.

Kind of precious, that bit. I may have ruined it a bit by chuckling behind my hand, but I think I recovered okay. I reminded her that the important thing is for me to be able to trust her, and reminded her that we both want her to be able to continue being trusted. I told her that she is more than welcome to request a re-visiting of the whole makeup question after she's ungrounded. I held her for awhile as she cried and eventually left her alone to sort herself out. Later, I took her a glass of water, and eventually she cried herself to sleep.

Relating the whole incident to R (who had fled the scene somewhere between the seventh "Nobody cares" and the sixteenth "What's the big deal about makeup anyway?"), I think he's proud of the way I handled this first major incident with Twelve. He fears that I let her get away with too much, most of the time, and he's probably right. It just takes so much energy to stay on top of every little thing! I have created a monster with Twelve's independence, that's for sure; for the most part it's the very best possible approach for both of us, but it also occasionally puts us in positions where she feels like she should have more decision-making authority than she does have or is ready to have.

Twelve will be ungrounded in a few days, and I'm sure won't forget to remind me to return all her stuff; I'm sure not looking forward to the whole house smelling like nail polish all the time.

Whoa. Weird Moment. How Do I Sign Emails to Twelve?

That was weird: I just registered Twelve for a volleyball skills building academy (which is not at all as pretentious as it sounds) and, when the email duly arrived with the confirmation, I duly clicked 'forward' to send it to Twelve (along with the news that she's going to a volleyball skills building academy).

Instead of typing in the standard lonely 'fyi' before clicking send, I typed "You're registered for Volleyball Academy! :-)"

Then, because I am so, so much less busy this week than the couple of weeks prior and because yesterday I put a card with a few purple tea bags in the mail to my cousin who loves the color purple and is home with a new baby and because Twelve has been driving me nuts lately so I don't feel terribly connected with her right now and because I am feeling a bit guilty about that, I added (only a little bit self-consciously) "I'm proud of your improvement in volleyball lately, and I hope you keep it up!"

Without thinking about it, I typed my initials, the way I always sign off on casual emails.

PAUSE.

Hey! I'm emailing my kid! That's not how you sign emails to your kid!

[backspace, backspace]

"xoxoxo
mommy"

Where Has the Magic Gone? (If You Drool On Me Again, It's OVER.)

I'm supposed to be studying, but I've just dumped Twelve off my lap after a prolonged session cuddling in the Big Blue Chair. Twelve calls it cuddling, but really it's like trying to ... metaphors fail me. It's like trying to hold a five-foot, nine-inch, 120-pound* person on your lap. Who squirms. Who accidentally-on-purpose sticks her hand in your armpit. Who simply must rotate 180 degrees every so often without standing up and thinks this is hilarious. Who sneezes without making the least effort to cover.

Last week, one of the other volleyball team moms mentioned that she takes advantage of opportunities to braid her daughter's hair because the girl has started to avoid physical contact with her mom. In a rare moment of maturity, I didn't mention that Twelve still likes occasional hugs and chair sitting, and almost always demands her bedtime back rubs. Score ten mature points for me.

I'm definitely going through some sort of phase, though: I'm not feeling the magic like I used to. I'm just feeling the weight of a somewhat stinky person whose elbow always seems to end up in my boob. I'm tired at night and the back-rubbing demands are getting old. Also, I really should be studying - of course my doctoral preliminary exams would end up being scheduled for the same week as a symposium, a board meeting, and a series of hiring committee interviews.

It's not that I am in a hurry for Twelve to grow out of this; I definitely get that it's still a super important and awesome stage. I don't even particularly dislike the squirming; my boobs are pretty squishy and her elbows aren't quite as lethally pointy as mine. I could do without the occasional bad attitude moments, but those are fairly infrequent and I'm not even seeing that much of Twelve these last few days (see above).

Either there's something wrong with me, or this is perfectly normal.

There are lots of things wrong with me: I seem to be unable to get up early for that precious hour of prime dissertation-writing time before breakfast. I routinely eat cheeseburgers after 10 pm. I have never held the same job for more than a year because I get bored. I broke a part of a very cool old sewing machine in a stunningly dumb shit moment a few months ago. I probably need to schedule an annual exam but don't know how long it's actually been since my last one. The damn grass is a week overdue for a trim.

Okay, I'm probably fine. We won't go so far as to claim normal (I don't like that term anyway), but let's go with fine. I'll power through the rest of this week, and hopefully next week - when I'm a doctoral candidate, knock on wood - the warm fuzzy feelings will have returned.

In the meantime, Twelve, that's your last last warning: Stop drooling on me and go away!

*According to her pediatrician, Twelve was "five nine and a smidge" last week. Basketball camp is the second week in June: Scouts, take notice!

Anti-Snowflake Training, from an Anti-Helicopter Parent

Yesterday, I happened to find myself in conversation with an anthropology graduate student who does summer camp work with adolescents and teenagers. I had mentioned Twelve, and asked him, mostly jokingly, if he had any advice on how to successfully navigate the upcoming descent into her being awful. To my surprise, he actually had a response! He suggested positive reinforcement.

The idea of positive reinforcement struck a bit of a delicate nerve, actually. Lately my feedback to Twelve's performance of her household tasks has been more along the lines of get-back-in-here-and-do-it-right, so there's room for improvement there. I can always do better at remembering to comment when she does a good job, I replied thoughtfully.

Later, though, I realized that if she's not doing her tasks properly, giving her positive feedback is a terrible idea. The last thing I want is for Twelve to turn into one of the overly delicate 'Snowflake' students that post-secondary educators so love to complain about [points to self]. These students complain about low scores because they spent so much time/worked so hard on the assignment, when in fact they failed to follow the damn instructions/produce the right answers. Somehow, the connection between Doing it Correctly and Getting a Good Grade is missing in their brains.

Experts tell us that these members of the Millennial generation have been raised with so much positive reinforcement that they don't know how to handle failure when they (perhaps inevitably) do. Their 'Helicopter' parents also tend to keep awfully close tabs on their college experiences, going so far as to contact instructors directly to demand grade adjustments.

Ummm ... I think I'll decline the opportunity to Helicopter around Twelve when she's in college, thankyouverymuch. Not-Helicoptering has worked really well so far, after all, and to be perfectly frank - I don't have time for that shit. Calling instructors to complain that she didn't get a good enough grade in Writing 121? I'm sorry, but I have better things to do, like re-mow the grass that I just freaking mowed last weekend.

Twelve, if you have a problem with a score you earned, fair and square, you're going to have to whine to your instructor yourself. Only ... please don't, since chances are you're attending a university at which we know at least one faculty member, and I really don't want to get that phone call.

So, my conclusion? I'm not going to praise Twelve for sub-par performance. She's perfectly capable of doing her tasks correctly, so when I find a glass that's smeary, I'm going to hold her accountable as best I can. I need to work on this, actually, as it's often so much easier to just re-wash the glass myself. At the same time, when Twelve does well, I'll make a point of letting her know that I've noticed:

Twelve, these chocolate chip cookies are delicious, and it's very thoughtful of you to bake them for your volleyball team. [Pause] I'm an honorary member of your volleyball team, right? [Eats six cookies.]

Stay Focused, Eyes on the Prize, Follow Your Instincts

I'm shaking with adrenaline. This is what happens when I've been exchanging emails with my ex about his time with Twelve.

For over two years, I've been dealing with an annoying legal situation that he initiated. Basically, after five years of almost no contact with Twelve and three years of two or three annual visits, he wanted me to pay for half of the costs of her visiting him six times a year. While I obviously have no issue with her visiting him as much as possible, there's no possible way that I can afford to pay for half of the cost.

His income is five times mine. He pays less than ten percent of his income as child support.

The short version is that after months of fruitless negotiation, we ended up going to trial, a process that cost me thousands of dollars. Thousands. We now have a very expensive official document that indicates the time he's supposed to spend with Twelve. I am highly motivated to follow this official document; after all, I spent the equivalent of two years' rent on it. When it says that he "shall have the child for two (2) three-week blocks" in the summer and that "the summer parenting time may be exercised as one (1) six-week block" if "the nonresidential parent has maintained regular meaningful contact with the child since the parties' separation," I am all about doing what it says: Two three week visits sounds about right.

He wants one (1) six-week visit. Keep in mind that from age three to age seven, Twelve saw her father perhaps three times. There may have been a half dozen phone conversations. She's never once received anything in the mail addressed by his hand. I have pretty good powers of reading comprehension and scored really, really high on the verbal portion of the GRE, so I'm confident that his contact with "the child" has been neither regular nor meaningful since we separated. Therefore, logic indicates two three-week visits.

Now, I may not have an extensive knowledge of child development; I haven't read any books on the subject of how long it's okay for a twelve-year-old to spend away from home. I haven't really even grilled my Child-and-Family-Therapist friend about it. Guess what? I don't need expert advice on this one. I've got instincts, and the thought of Twelve going for a six-week visit gives me an awful feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.

I don't believe in 'mothering instincts' as an essential characteristic of females who gestate and give birth. There are plenty of women for whom mothering doesn't come naturally and doesn't feel instinctive. For me, though, being Twelve's mommy has been almost 100% instinctive - or at least felt that way. Yes, I've had excellent resources in the form of a middle class family and a very committed and involved full-time mother. Even though I've undoubtedly learned a lot without necessarily knowing it, the practice of mothering has been very natural for me. So, when I say that Twelve being gone for six weeks straight this summer seems like a terrible idea, I mean that TWELVE SHOULD NOT BE GONE FOR SIX WEEKS THIS SUMMER.

Finally, common ground with Sarah Palin! 'Mama Bear Mother of Twelve' it is, then. I shall order a new batch of calling cards.

Would Twelve survive being gone for six weeks? Undoubtedly. I've been convinced for several years now that Twelve is going to turn out just fine (unless she makes really bad choices or something catastrophic happens). Is being gone for six weeks best for her? Not in a million billion bajillion years. I'm certain of this, deeply certain, fundamentally and really truly certain.

She's in a delicate state, Twelve is; a fragile developmental balance of positive and negative. She still knows who she is and is confident of her self-worth and identity. She hasn't yet - quite - fallen off the cliff of adolescence. She's started to tentatively experiment with stomping away and slamming doors, but she still wants her bedtime backrubs. She completes her daily tasks with marked halfheartedness, but still initiates utterly ridiculous poke-and-tickle giggle-fests with R.

Something deep in my being says that being gone for six weeks isn't a good idea. I can't quite articulate why (see above), but my instincts have been damn good for the last twelve and a half years, so I'm inclined to trust them, despite my ex's heavy-handed demands.

Stay strong, Mama Bear! Stick to your guns. Don't let anyone convince you that you don't know what's best for Bear Cub Twelve. Calm down, deep breaths, don't hyperventilate. Fight off the adrenaline. Have a cup of tea.

RELIEF

Twelve is back from her trip, safe and sound and pretty much her usual incorrigible self. I’m incredibly relieved. As I sat waiting in the airport outside security the other morning, I was dreading the possibility that she’d be sullen, distant, and not happy to see me. However, when she came into view she was smiling in the usual manner, ready for a hug as usual.

I watched her carefully (surreptitiously of course) for a few days, just to be sure. Perhaps there are deeper-seated issues that don't show right away, I thought. Maybe it will take a few days for the change to kick in. Nope, still wants to be tucked in and back rubbed at bedtime. Still sleeps with Soft Blanky. Still gets up and ready for school reliably. Okay, sigh of relief, we're in good shape.

And then she started driving me bonkers.

She's been good at finding ways to annoy us for awhile now, and it doesn't usually get too far out of hand. Usually she pushes it until I get really annoyed, and then she backs off. Hovering is a pretty awful technique; that's when she stands right behind you, puts her hands on your shoulders, and whispers breathily, "hover hover hover." It may not sound like much, but it's the WORST THING EVER and she knows it.

To quote Ramona Quimby's father's grandmother: "First time is funny, second time is silly, third time is a spanking." We've altered this somewhat for Twelve: Third time is I'm taking away your iPod.

The latest annoying thing is startling me. As in, literally, finding ways to activate my fairly sensitive startle reflex.

I startle ridiculously easily when people appear unexpectedly. I've been known to scream when roommates come into the room. R has learned that if he comes home when I'm in the shower or in my sewing room, it's a really good idea to jangle the keys in the living room, rattle the bedroom doorknob, and/or make noise coming down the stairs. (What, it's not fun to be hollered at when you get home?)

Twelve has taken this one step farther. Imagine you're getting ready to exit the bathroom, just minding your own business, and when you open the door, boom! right there at eye level is a face: Huge, wide-eyed, grinning. It's as bad as hovering, with the added awful element of surprise. And then, of course, the giggling, which is infectious, so your protestations are that much less effective.

She also likes to try and sneak into the room. Simpler, but effective enough when it works, and it doesn't require standing motionless in wait outside the bathroom door. Luckily this house is old and creaky and she is terrible at suppressing giggles, so it doesn't work very often, but every now and then I turn around and there she is.

Twelve, you're completely obnoxious, and you know it, which is why you're laughing uncontrollably. Yes, I do think it's funny for about seven seconds, but then you must stop or I must run away. I can tell that you know this as well, because you're saying "I love you" and trying to hug me through your laughter in that play-placating way that you have so finely honed.

I'm so glad that you're home, Twelve, and you'll never know how relieved I am that you're still yourself. Now, cut it out or I'm taking your iPod!

Missing Twelve

Twelve is spending spring break with her other biological parent, about two thousand miles away from where I'm spending spring break with R and three thousand away from our home. I've spent the last few days trying not to think about it, but I've finally given up and thought about it:

I hate this.

It's not so much that I don't like being away from Twelve. Her whole life, I've not minded taking a few days' break now and again. True, now that she's Twelve, I've been more reluctant to spend time apart because I am so cherishing this time and so fearing its end. However, the yucky feeling in the pit of my stomach these last few days is mostly about the 'other biological parent' part.

I don't want to go into too much detail here because I can feel the adrenaline flowing, so I'll just sketch out the basics. When Twelve was an infant, I was married to her dad, but his participation was minimal - let's just say I think he changed a diaper occasionally. When she was 18 months old, he moved out. He saw her a couple of times a month for a day at a time for the next couple of years. Then, when the army moved him out of state, we pretty much did not hear from him for about four years. I think he saw her once during that time, called a few times, never once put a stamp on anything addressed to her.

When Twelve was seven, I got an email demanding that I put her on an airplane and send her, alone, to the other side of the continent for Christmas. I demurred: Surely it would be better for her if you came here to visit? She's never been on a plane and she hasn't seen you in two years.

No. Put her on the plane. You are keeping me from seeing my child. I will take you to court.

Eventually, fearing expensive legal hassles, I gave in. I negotiated him down to a length of time that I could talk her into being comfortable with. Reluctantly, I packed her suitcase and drove her to the airport.

What did she do? My precious girl hugged me goodbye with a smile and sauntered nonchalantly down the gangway.

Even now, more than four years later, I still get choked up thinking about it. Somehow, all by myself, I had raised a girl who could do that. Just hop on a plane like it's no biggie. (When I tell this story in person, there's even a carefree sound effect: 'Doot doot doot doot dooooooo.')

Now, of course, Twelve is a seasoned traveler. She packs her own bags and complains about long flights. The last few times, she's flown on an airline that doesn't require her to have the special unaccompanied minor service, and she loves it. In December, I was reminding her to ask someone at the desk to help her find her connecting flight, and I could see the wheels turning: "I can see you thinking! You're thinking you're just going to figure it out for yourself, aren't you!" I exclaimed. Twelve smiled sheepishly and admitted to it. We both grinned.

That's my girl.

If only she was going to visit someone else, someone I trust. We've got people like that, in Colorado Springs and Boston and Winston-Salem and Atlanta and small towns in coastal Maine. But she's going to spend time with someone whose emails to me are hostile, threatening, demanding, and intimidating. Someone who recently dragged me through a ridiculously expensive court battle, even though I repeatedly offered to settle - and on terms much more favorable to him than what we got. Someone who has never once contacted me just to ask how Twelve's doing. Someone who, I've concluded, doesn't really give a shit about her except to 'have' her in his family.

To Twelve, I refer to him as 'your dad,' entirely for her benefit. I blame the English language for not providing a more accurate term for those who are a bare something more than sperm donors but don't do any of the parenting. It makes me crazy angry that such people are allowed to take credit for the wonderful children that other people raise. For twelve years, I've dedicated my life to the project of Twelve, and done it pretty well. Guess why she was able to hop on that plane with aplomb when she was eight? Guess why she's so helpful with your little girls? Guess why she's so much fun to give presents to? Because of me, you jackass. Admit you've done jack shit to raise her, quit being a douchebag to me, and take some time off work to actually get to know her.

Ugh. I keep hoping that eventually I'll make sense of this; that I'll achieve closure. Maybe I'm thinking about it too much, or not enough, or ineffectively. Maybe I am secretly hoping that someday it will just go away, somehow. On Saturday, Twelve and I will meet at the airport and take the train home, and - if I'm lucky once again - everything will be fine, back to ever-shifting normal.

Cross your fingers for me? Thanks.