Friday, February 9, 2007
Page 15
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
She’s a Tween Aged Drama Queen Now
By J’AMY PACHECO
We were in the middle of our morning rush to get out the door when my daughter made an ill-timed remark.
“Mom,” she said. “I wish we could snuggle.”
Snuggling was the last thing on my mind at that moment. My thoughts were occupied by the realization that I needed to put gas in the car, that I’d left a cereal bowl on the table with milk still inside, and that we were all going to run out of clean undies if I didn’t get to the laundry pretty soon.
I stopped and gave her a quick hug, explaining that it was the equivalent of a fast-food, drive-through snuggle. It was enough, however, for us to get on with our day.
I suspect we’ll be having a lot more of those moments in the coming days. My little girl is unquestionably a ‘tween now, and she’s got the emotions to prove it.
The actual age at one becomes a ‘tween is open for debate. Some say it happens at the age of eight; others say it doesn’t start until you’re 10. In the “Hobbit” stories, you’re not a ‘tween until you’re 20, but that’s a whole different world.
In any case, ‘tweens are those youths in the awkward stage of being too old to be considered children, and too young to be teenagers. Everybody knows teenaged girls are filled with angst and emotion, but I have to say, they’ve got nothing on a ‘tween aged drama queen like mine.
It’s hard to believe the bundle of emotion who lives with me today is the same four-pound preemie I brought home 11 years ago. Back then, she couldn’t even spit up properly, and slept each night by my side, an apnea monitor band around her tiny chest.
Today, she can spit up like a champ. I know this, because she spent her last full week as a 10-year-old suffering mightily from the flu. She’s better now, just in time to celebrate her 11th birthday this week.
In some ways, she’s still my baby girl. She’s small enough to need a booster seat in the car, and light enough that I can still carry her down the stairs every morning.
But she’s changed in ways that continually amaze me. She’s a lot smarter than I am, for example, and has moments of perception that make me wonder if I got the right baby from the hospital.
She’s still a little kid, though, who loves to practice spelling words like “posthumous” and “polymorphous” by shouting out each letter while jumping rope in the kitchen.
She adores Jesse McCartney, Hannah Montana — and all those ‘tween movies Disney is so good at making. She would spend every day at Disneyland if she could. She wants to move near the ocean, but can’t bear to leave her friends behind. Just the thought of that makes her emotional.
So does everything else, come to think of it. A few nights ago, she seemed on the verge of tears.
“Mommy,” she said, “Did you ever feel like you want something so much that it makes you want to cry — but you don’t know what you want?”
Um…yes. I remember my ‘tween – and teen – years as being filled with those moments. I remember one minute wanting to move away and join a new family; the next, loving my mother so much it made my heart hurt. I’m still apologizing for the teenage angst and moodiness that made my whole family so miserable.
Now it’s my daughter’s turn. Next year she’ll turn 12, and then I’ll have a teenager on my hands. I’m not sure how that will work out, because she didn’t even want to turn 11. She kept hoping Peter Pan would show up and whisk her off to Neverland – but only if he would let me go along for the trip.
I can’t begin to imagine what the next few years hold for us. My “baby” intends to graduate from The USC Viterbi School of Engineering, and then work for Disney Imagineering. She set that goal in first grade, and has never wavered. (She hasn’t figured out how we’re going to pay for it, either, but that’s another story.) So sure is she that she’s going there that some days, she’ll log on to the university’s Web site just to watch students walk by the TommyCam.
There have been some challenges during the past 10 years, but for the most part, we’ve been extraordinarily fortunate. We have a sweet, smart, healthy little girl who has a promising future ahead.
I suspect we have some big challenges ahead, too, not the least of which will be getting through these ‘tween years. But I’m optimistic. So far, we haven’t encountered anything that can’t be solved with a snuggle.
Even if it has to be the drive-through kind.
Copyright 2007, Metropolitan News Company