Welcome to My Life

I look at the picture of P when he was eighteen months old, and I can feel his sturdy weight in my arms and smell that sweet aroma that is so distinctly toddler boy.  P is eleven, almost twelve, now.  Those days of hefting his little body where I needed it to be and pleasing him with a package of fruit snacks are long gone.  He’s almost as tall as me now, and nearly as heavy.  He has his own interests, his own pursuits, and his own opinions.  When he was a chubby little toddler, I could barely contain the desire to hug and smooch him all of the time.  Now, I have to fight the urge to smack him.

This is a record of P’s tweendom.  It’s an effort to survive with my sanity intact.  I hope that others with similar struggles will find comfort in knowing that they’re not alone.  I am one of those mothers who has wanted to dump her child on the side of the road to find his own way home, who has fought valiantly against the urge to scream “shut the hell up” right in the face of her own child, whose hand has itched with the almost impossible to resist urge to slap a smirk off of the face of my former baby.  If you are too, I welcome your responses.  If you know how to do it better – have been there and done that with no drama or trauma – have stories and memories of your “perfect” child as he or she went through that wasteland between eleven and thirteen…please go away as I have no use for you whatsoever.

Advertisement