Hard Feelings

So, on top of the no sleeping-in weekend, which by the way is DESTROYING MY LIFE, we also seem to have gotten a tween all of a sudden.

I have come to find out that a tween is a lot like a teenager in that they speak to you with that sassy, petulant tone to their voice, and they have a vocabulary filled with only five words, "I don't know", "I don't care" and "okay". Oh, and the lying, the unimaginable amount of lying.

The difference between teenagers and tweens is that tweens still throw tantrums.

Yay!!!

You know, I really don't think I took ages 6, 7, and 8 for granted. They were fantastically fun and we did a lot of really memorable stuff. But Holy Christ (on a stick).....I am not ready for what is next if it has been anything like the past five days.

Or maybe we will never again leave town because I might be able to deal with all the completely unacceptable behavior we have had recently if I was actually sort of caught up on my sleep.

Word of the Day Tuesday, January 26, 2010

evince

\ih-VIN(T)S\ , transitive verb;

1. To show in a clear manner; to manifest; to make evident; to bring to light.

Looking back on that evening she was surprised at how all the details were still so crisp in her memory.

She had only gotten home a few minutes before them, enough time to grab a snack and use the bathroom before her husband and step-daughter had arrived filling the kitchen with their chatter.

"Since you are the keeper of the Christmas Present Idea List, I have an idea for my dad to tell you," her step-daughter had whispered loudly into her ear.

"Oh great!" she had replied, "But you are whispering really loudly. Why don't we go into a different room so your dad doesn't hear your idea, and I'll grab a piece of paper and a pencil to write it down so I don't forget."

She remembered that she had felt genuinely interested in hearing her step-daughter's idea, and pleased that the generosity and thoughtfulness of Christmas was carrying over into the new year.

"A Red Hot Chili Peppers album," her step-daughter had whispered to her. "That is a little odd," she thought as she scribbled the idea down on the scrap of paper, thinking that it would have been weird for her husband to express a specific desire for a Red Hot Chili Peppers album, but it was nice that her step-daughter was thinking of other people. Her husband did love music. She stood up and set the paper on the counter and opened the refrigerator door to start pulling out dinner ingredients.

"If she was suggesting the Red Hot Chili Peppers as a gift idea, that is something she wants, not something I want," her husband said swirling the computer chair around towards her.

It took a moment for his statement to evince the reality of what had just transpired between her and her step-daughter. The truth and self-centered motivations slowly unfurling like a lazy wave breaking upon the shore. It had seduced her with the familiar rhythm, the rise and fall of their typical routine, only to have it crash unexpectedly upon her. The momentum of the event then slowly sliding the rest of the way up the beach along her neck to her hairline.

Honestly, it surprised her. The feelings of betrayal, of the humiliation of being lied to and her silly gullibility, and at the very bottom of it, the overwhelming feeling of having been used, piercing through her chest.

And it was within that moment, as she looked back on it, that everything had changed for her.