Be Careful as You Pass, Move Along, Move Along

I took this a few years ago when the girls had attitudes, but not quite ATTITUDES.

When you have a thirteen year old and a fourteen year old living in your house at the same time, you can definitely have your bad days. Last Sunday, the girls came home from their dad's house and were at each other the minute they walked in the door. They fought about who would get on the computer first, and since Coadster lost that battle, she sat on the floor next to Stinky and made disparaging remarks and kept saying, "Are you done yet? How about now? Are you done now? Jeez, you are so spoiled. You get whatever you want." And when I tried to assure Coadster that it was Stinky's turn fair and square, I had to hear barely audible back talk under her breath.

"What did you say?" I asked.

"Nothing. God. Just forget it."

"Seriously. You have to knock that off or you're going to your room. It's disrespectful and I don't deserve it."

"What? I just said hummalahummala rasenfrasenrittlerattin (and a few more things I couldn't make out). I can't say anything in this house without getting in trouble..."

"Okay, that's it. Go to your room and hate me there where I can't see or hear you. I asked you to knock it off and that attitude is apparently beyond your control, so you need to contain it in your room. I'm going running. When I come back and we've both had time to calm down, we can have a little chat."

"Fine," Coadster said and stomped off to her room. She didn't slam her door - she knew better. She did, however put on her Emerson Lake and Palmer CD, because she has to pick some of the most obscure old bands she can find and play them a few hundred times a day for a while until she moves onto the next one. Last year she was into The Zombies.

At the beginning of my run, I grumbled under my own breath about the situation and aggressively rolled my eys a few times, but once the endorphins kicked in, I was over it and realized that I only had three and a half years left before Coadster went off to college. For the rest of the run, I compiled a list in my head of all the things that will change once the girls are gone.

1.) I won't have anyone around to shake their heads and say, "Mom. No." before I leave the house wearing something truly ridiculous.

2.) No one will roll on the floor laughing when I do my mock show choir routines.

3.) I won't have an excuse to watch cheesy girly teen flicks.

4.) I won't have anyone to run with me at the rec building and wave or give the dorky thumbs-up sign every time either one of us passes the other.

5.) I won't have anyone to spend that pre-Christmas weekend with, shopping, (and putting up with my grouchiness about it) seeing a cheesy holiday movie, picking out decorations and finally going to a farm and cutting down the tree.

6.) I won't have two people who are just as into taking road trips as I am - including buying special, gross road food, helping me navigate and listening to the same lame-ass mixed tapes I made in the nineties.

7.) I will have to figure out how to pimp-out my Myspace profile by myself.

8.) I will be hard pressed to find anyone else as spazzy as I am who will get so excited about any matter of dumb stuff that they'll shake both fists in the air or do the cheerleader clap and say, "Yea, Yea, Yea!" with me.

9.) I'm sure I'll mutter to myself as I putz around the house even more than I do already.

10.) I've always said I might join the Peace Corps. once the girls turned eighteen, and I'd either have to do that and live uncomfortably for a couple of years or call myself a liar.

I had Coadster when I was twenty-six, so I've been a parent through most of my adult life. It's hard to know what the hell I'll do once both the girls turn eighteen...Maybe I'll become one of those scary cat ladies instead.