Today, Travis is two years old. He's less a baby and more a little boy, and the terrible twos are already coming at Mom and Dad in full force. I can sit back and laugh because we already survived it three times, which was more like 5 times given just how hard Rachel embraced the terrible twos and for how long. Instead of a party, Mom wanted something that would just wear the kids out so that they would go to sleep at a reasonable time tonight and give her a few minutes to breathe, so we're piling all the kids into cars and heading for the condo. Hopes are high that an afternoon playing in the snow and then taking them out for pizza will be enough to exhaust them. But if not, she and Mikko can still wander off for a while tonight and leave the kids with us.
Since the kids have a long weekend, we'll probably stay through Monday, which is annoying the hell out of Rachel. Grounded last weekend, she had another mini-meltdown when Char and I wouldn't just cancel our Valentine's Day plans so that she could go out with Cheese again. It wouldn't have mattered what our plans were; it was a school night, so she wasn't going anywhere. I think she saw a light at the end of the tunnel with Friday approaching, until she realized it was Travis's birthday and we'd had plans in place for quite a while, and there was no getting around it in spite of trying to sucker us into leaving her home with Uncle Craig. Yeah, that's not happening, ever. And evening, sure. A weekend? Not a snowball's chance in hell.
I understand she feels picked on, and I understand that whiny teenaged voice in the back of her head screaming that if she doesn't go out with him again he'll get bored and find another girlfriend. What she doesn't understand is that she really is not going to die if that happens.
My goal in life may become finding creative ways to keep her from dating. She might be ready for it; I am not. As it is I spent all last summer working over time to keep Alex from doing something stupid with his girlfriend; if I have to keep turning the hose on my daughter all this summer, I may have another heart attack.
It might have been easier when they were Travis and Thad's ages, when all we had to really worry about was frustrated toddler temper.
And Kevin is head straight for it; he turns 12 next month, which means puberty and the attitude can't be far behind.
No comments:
Post a Comment