Early Mornings with The Moody Teenager
It’s 6:10am on a rainy Monday morning when my dreaded alarm clock puts an immediate halt to my peaceful dream. It’s cheer day, so that means 6:30am practice. Cheer is everything to my nearly 14 year-old daughter, but from what I have witnessed, early mornings are clearly “not the vibe” for my girl. She is moody, she is frazzled, and the most frustrating piece of it all is that she is SO FUCKING NOISY. Like she doesn’t give a flip that everyone else, other than ME, is still sound asleep. She yells from her room that she can’t find her hair straightener. She slams the door to the bathroom because why not? And she grunts and makes pissed off noises because she can’t find her shirt or shorts or pompoms or shoes. As I hear the calamity throughout the entire house, I run to her room to tell her to shut up! My very presence exacerbates the issue and increases her decibels. She has now woken up her 7 year-old sister whose room is literally across the house. Like two points could not be any further apart within our home.
Without difficulty or hesitation, I locate her straightener which was neatly wrapped up and under her sink. So bizarre that it would be located exactly where it should be. I then make my way into her heap of disaster that she calls a closet and sift through the rubble to locate everything else. While I feel like a hero in my accomplishments, I am quickly and loudly notified that I am “in her bubble” and am somehow at fault for everything that has gone wrong so far. OMG.
So now the little one is awake and pissed. She wouldn’t go to bed last night until after 10pm, and waking up to a screaming teenager is nobody’s first choice. She’s crying now because she apparently has no clothes, no socks, no shoes, and no underwear.
Then there’s the middle one. This one wakes up at 5:45am daily to participate in her solo soccer skills routine in the garage. In fairness to my oldest, my youngest could have been woken up to the sound of a soccer ball repeatedly banging against the door right outside of her room, but who knows. Sometimes it’s just more fun to blame the moody teenager. Either way, I’d prefer my dreaded alarm clock over either wake up option that is available to my youngest.
Then there’s my husband. He talks a big game about going to work out in the mornings, and this comes to fruition sometimes. The days it does are a mixed bag because occasionally this means that the girls are better, and other times it means that they are worse. It’s a gamble. But on the days he’s home, I might as well just have a 4th child. He pretends to sleep through the noise, yells when anyone comes into the room, intermittently snores like a lumberjack, and only wakes up when my level of pissed off correctly alerts him that he’s in trouble and will suffer the consequences for his leisurely morning.
Now it’s 6:27am and it’s really time to go. “Come on, honey, you’re going to be late!” To my chagrin, I have never once since my daughter has become a teenager received a response along the lines of “thank you for your concern” or “I really appreciate you waking up so early to take me.” Instead, despite all of my efforts to make her life easier, I am bombarded with “WHERE ARE MY STUPID BLACK LULU SHORTS?!!! WHY DOES MY HAIR LOOKS SO FREAKING GREASY?!!!” And my favorite one… “YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE ME LATE – LET’S GO!!!”
She’s typically pissed off until she makes it to the car at which time she relents when she checks her snaps and realizes that she has pics from cute boys. I mean what better way to make a 13 year-old smile than a “full face” pic of a “FINE” guy (or 2 or 3 or 4) at 6:29am? She typically makes it to cheer in the nick of time, and once she leaves the car, she’s all smiles. Next it’s on to the little sisters as the crazy continues and I get them to school on time (sometimes). And my husband wonders why I drive around the neighborhood a few times before coming home. I mean, seriously?!
The thing is, I wouldn’t trade any of it. My days are insanely long, are filled with demands, and not a day goes by that doesn’t include irrational moments. There are days when I just sit in the car and cry because I don’t know how to handle all of the chaos and to be honest, I’m just TIRED. But then I come inside and am greeted by the sweetest puppy who loves me so much that she pees from the excitement of my presence. I find a handmade book on the kitchen counter from my youngest that says “you are the best Mommy in the whole world.” A few minutes later, I get a message from my middle asking if we can get boba together (just the two of us) after school because she loves spending time with just me. I take a deep breath and smile.
As I attempt to get in the shower to start my own day of work, I hear the dreaded vibration of a snap notification. Knowing that the only people who typically snap me are my husband to send something funny and inappropriate or my oldest daughter to alert me of a need that must be met immediately, I cautiously look down at my phone. It was the latter. “Pls bring lunch. Athletics til 5:30. Need asap.” FREAKING AGAIN??? It should be noted that this is probably the 10th time she has forgotten something over the course of the year, and despite the fact that the school is only 30 seconds away, I waiver between being the person who can make her day easier and teaching tough love. So I have settled on a compromise. You forget your shit, I will bring it but on MY terms.
And what were my terms today? Ah yes, to repack her lunch in a unicorn lunchbox of course! Forgot her badge earlier in the week? Okay, I will save her from lunch detention, but you bet I posted her possessed-faced badge picture onto my snap story asking if any of her friends could let her know that I’m waiting in the parking lot since she’s ignoring my texts. I only have a handful of friends on the app, so the fact that my post received 3 screenshots and 1 “She’s gunna kill you” made me feel like I was holding up my end of the bargain.
These tactics embarrass her no doubt, but they thoroughly amuse me. They break up the monotony of my day and make me laugh. Despite her overt protest to my antics, even she cannot deny that I helped her out of a lurch. Deep down I know that my conditional assistance makes her smile, too, and knowing that my girls are smiling makes this momma heart believe that every ounce of crazy is worth the ride.
