Last night I experienced another glimpse into the approaching season of adolescence in our home. Samantha learned that during a week long vacation in the mountains that we have coming up, she would be missing out on a pool party. She came home, thrust the invitation in front of me for emphasis, and I responded, “Oh yeah, that should be fun!” She huffed and said, “Dad said we’re not going to BE here!” I ran the dates quickly through my head and finally recalled the conflict. “Ooooh….” And then I went on to explain that we would be having MORE fun because the place we are going to not only has a pool, where we can swim EVERY DAY, but it has a lake, and boats, and tennis, and bike trails and…. “I don’t care!” With all our attempts to convince her that she was getting the better end of the deal, she finally gave up and said, “You guys just don’t get it.”
Drew had just come out of the bath and heard Samantha crying on her bed. He said, “Mom, can you hurry up and dry my hair because I want to go cheer Samantha up.”
“Oh? And how are you going to do that?”
“I’m going to do the hula and sing ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’,” as he demonstrated.
“Well, that’s nice of you to want to cheer her up, but don’t let it hurt your feelings if it doesn’t work.”
“Okay.”
A few minutes later he came back downstairs.
“Well, how did it go?”
“Not so good. She told me to go away.”
He seemed unphased. Later we coaxed her into a game of Uno Attack and all seems to be well for now.
For Now.
2 comments:
So as a 22 year old, I'm still "secretly" (maybe not so much a secret now...) a little disappointed that our family trip up to Vail this weekend is causing me to miss my friend's housewarming party. More excited for a weekend in the mountains, but still missing the housewarming.
Point of the story: the situational goal should be to nix the crying and hope that the parties she wants to go to eventually stop involving swimsuits... :)
Ohhh, I feel so badly about this. I wish I could change the date, but all the other girls that I spoke to can make it that day and Maria is setting it up and swimming with them since I don't. Had I known, I would have set up a different date. Poor sweetie. She may be a tween and it's more upsetting because of that, but she's still Rachel's BFF and someone we're very fond of, so it's hard to know she'll miss it. I swear, I'd change it if I could. That's the thing about the annual stuff, too; it gets them all upset when they can't make it. Whenever I see her, I'll talk up the "big trip" and not talk about the swim party.
Post a Comment