Better times.
I’ve had it with lippy eight-year-olds. My daughter has been home from school for exactly three minutes when her foot –accidentally- comes into contact with three cars, which then fly, all on their own, into her little brothers shins. This hurts, and he immediately retaliates by picking up his plastic plane and throwing it at her. Of course, he misses; she’s long gone. She’s off to the dining room, where she pretends to be completely engrossed in her homework. As if.
I’m right there, and even I don’t know how she moved from point A to point B so fast.
“Come back here,” I say. After I repeat myself three times, she does.
Maybe there was a really good reason for her behavior, but I’ll never know: Isabella feels guilty, and thus goes on the offensive. She does this by refusing to answer questions and giving me the death stare. I am not impressed with the death stare. I can produce a really nasty one myself, and besides: she’s only eight.
Isabella doesn’t know her staring powers still need to mature. Also, she has read ‘Matilda’, so she stares hard and long hoping for something cool and hateful to happen. Spontaneous combustion, instant choking, or maybe my head will explode. Unfortunately for her, my head stays exactly where it is, and she gets sent to her room for some necessary cool-down time.
“No,” she says.
What?!
“What do you mean, no? Yes!”
“No. I will not go to my room. I still have to do my homework,” she says, with a- is that a smirk on her face? Oh, I get it: she expects me to give in and let her stay downstairs because I would never, ever let anything interfere with her homework.
She is wrong.
“Take your homework with you,” I tell her, “but you’re not staying downstairs. Not until you can be nicer to your brother and to me.”
This does not go over well, but after saying some very unfriendly things, she finally stomps upstairs. Once there, she slams her door, opens it, slams it again, and, for extra effect, throws her backpack around a few times. Just in case I still don’t get the point, she cries at full volume for twenty minutes or so.
When I check on her half an hour later, she is fast asleep, looking very innocent. I’m not surprised; switching back and forth between angelic behaviors and looking like Caravaggio’s Medusa is, after all, her specialty. “She’s pre-adolescent,” my friends-with- older-kids tell me, although that may just be wishful thinking on their part. I’m not worried about what’s coming; I’m just relieved that, for now, the storm has subsided.
And just for the record, I am not ‘the meanest mom ever’. I’m still working on that.
If you enjoyed this article, you may also like Small disasters, Living with a klutzy child, Would it kill you to put on some clothes? and Second language troubles
Comments
Sounds like she needs more discipline than just being sent to her room. Kids shouldn't be talking back like that, especially at that age. Pre-adolescent is 12....not eight. I think you may have a problem.
Excuse me Jennifer, but do you have an 8 year old girl currently living at your house? Yes? No? Well I do and let me assure you that she acts EXACTLY LIKE ISABELLA. And so do all her friends. And I know this because I have had conversations with the other mothers in her class, and they are in agreement (with emphasis on the talking-back and the slamming of various household objects). This is how 8 year old girls act! Because they think they know more than their mothers! And yes, they are pre-adolescent because pre-adolescence lasts for several years, and does NOT begin at a set in stone age. And once they ARE adolescents, they will be MUCH worse than they are now. Think about how a teenage girl acts towards her mother, then subtract only a slight amount of venom and what do you get? Isabella and every other 8-10 year old girl in the United States.
No, you are not "the meanest mom ever" because I am! That is because I make my 8-yr old daughter go up to her room to cool down sometimes, even before she does her homework. Then homework waits for her and uses up all the free time that she would have had after dinner. No free time at all for a day! Meanest mom ever! Slam! Slam!
Susiecat, are you saying yours starts acting up on the car ride home too?
It's just humor, folks. I love your stories. Thanks for writing.
8, 9, 10--doesn't matter, the lippy divas are frustrating. and funny, too. Hard to hold in the laughter when they get all full of themselves. Good thing I am usually driving the little critters home, i can stare straight ahead and no one can see my shoulders are shaking! And Jennifer--I have 3 9 year olds--mine respond yes ma'am and no ma'am to my commands. And they are still lippy divas. LOL!
Mine starts getting lippy about 5 seconds after I wake her up in the morning. Sometimes she forgets the attitude for a few minutes and is back to her delightful friendly and funny self, but then she catches her lapse, and on we go again. Lippy is a state of being for 3rd grade girls. I can hardly wait for adolescence. And I agree with EemaGadolah -- I have to try hard not to laugh at her when she does it, can't blow my cover.
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!