The day Chad turned 13, our world changed. Our house changed. My sanity changed! I remember him walking into the house after school and the attitude! I thought . . where is my sweet boy? I often mentioned it on the blog and almost everyone who had children who had grown into adults told me “The sweet boy will be back but it will be many years!” For at least 6 years, I often looked at him when he was being quiet (sleeping!) and wondered how one little human had gone from being such a sweet, helpful, considerate child to the obnoxious, mouthy person now living in our house.
Sure enough . . he grew up and changed and now, for the most part, I can see that sweet little boy I once knew.
Addie just turned 9. We got to the game Saturday and had to walk forever to get to the visitors’ seating area. It was funny that our first football game at the Webb City stadium and we were sitting on the visitor side cheering for the visiting team, wearing my visiting team T-shirt! 🙂
Anyway, the previous game hadn’t ended and all of Addie’s little group of cheerleaders were standing over by a tree near the sidewalk and they were chatting. Honestly, so many of them look the same and I was having a hard time picking Addie out of the crowd. Vince said “She’s the one with her back to us.” As we walked by, she turned to look, as she had probably done when anyone passed. I’m telling you . . she looked us right in the eye and pretended she had never seen either of us. No “Hello!” No wave. No smile. She turned right back to what she was doing. Vince grabbed my shoulder and said “Did we just see what I think we saw? She totally ignored us!”
I said . . I knew this would happen some day but I didn’t expect to happen this soon. Vince said “We just moved from Texas to Missouri for THIS?” We both laughed. My feelings weren’t even hurt but I did think it was kinda rude on her part.
After the game they came by here. I knew she was going to ask to spend the night but it was Saturday night and she had to be home by Sunday evening. I also knew that since Chad had spent the entire day running around doing Addie stuff, he probably had things he needed to get done on Sunday so I’d be the one driving Addie home.
As expected, they hadn’t been here long when Addie said, in front of all of us, “Can I spend the night here?” I said “Wait . . the one who wouldn’t waive or smile or say hello to me wants to spend the night at my house??” She kinda smirked and Chad told her no . . she had chores to get done at home and she couldn’t stay because she could only stay one night so that wasn’t a good night to stay.”
I’m not even going to say anything to her about it . . it’s part of being a kid and my part of being a granny is letting her grow up and part of that is probably not wanting to be seen with granny.
Helen says
I have 2 daughters. My girls started trying to “talk back” at about 10. I didn’t expect that until they were teenagers, but I was wrong.
My girls are grown and in their 40’s now. Maybe kids are starting this behavior in “single digits” nowadays!!!
As people say, “This, too, will pass”!
Judy Laquidara says
That’s why I’m not going to make a big deal about it. It will pass (or it won’t) but as the grandparent, I don’t have a lot of say in how things are handled and I believe in choosing my battles. I was just surprised by it.
montanaclarks says
Our oldest granddaughter, Katie the teacher moved near us when she was Addie’s age–I almost killed her. That mouth!!! She now has a five year old son and an almost four year old daughter. The daughter has a mouth and a look that would have gotten me slapped when growing up. I told Katie the other day that she might want to rein in that attitude because it wouldn’t be very pretty at 9 or 16!!
vivoaks says
I was very blessed with my girls….the son – not so much! He was the first-born, and even before the teen years he had a mouth on him. I fought him till he loved out…and back in…and back out…and back in..well, you get the idea. Finally at almost 40 I stopped expecting problems with him. It just took him a loooong time to grow up. The girls – they barely ever sassed me, and never gave me problems, to speak of. Maybe I was just still in shock from the boy!! However, now that they’re adults, they don’t agree with my politics, so sometimes I think we argue more now than we ever did when they were teens!!