Half Drinks And Dirty Things.....Or What My 3 Year Old Thinks Of My 13 Year Olds Room

If you have a teenager then you pretty much already know what this is about. :) Yesterday, after his bath, my son was standing in my daughter's bedroom door saying things like..."Yuck!" or "GROSS!" or "SisSis needs to clean her room!". Yes, it was that bad. If a 3yr old  thinks your room is disgusting then it really is disgusting and should be cleaned ASAP. Let me go back about 8-10 years, when my daughter was just a little girl. She was so sweet, helpful, neat and her room was always clean!! No, I didn't clean it, she did! You can imagine all the wonderful things that were running through my head back then....."I'm so lucky to have such a helpful, clean child." or "My kid will never be like the other teenagers I know." or, this is my favorite...."I feel so sorry for all the other Moms I know, they're kids are horrible! Thank GAWD my kid will always be as sweet as she is now!" -_- So delusional. I had every right to brag and think she'd always be as, well, perfect as she was. She was! Sweet, highly intelligent, neat and most of all........my little girl.

Then one day it all changed. She no longer hung things up. She started not making her bed. She would leave glasses, of whatever it was she was drinking, laying around her room. She didn't hang the towels up anymore. She left lights on. She stopped opening her windows. She started hanging pictures of boys on her wall. She put a sign on her door that says..."RAY-VEN'S ROOM!! KEEP OUT!! AND KNOCK FIRST BEFORE ENTERING!!!!!" -_- What happened?! Where did I go wrong?!?!?! I set out on a mission to find out all I could on this new breed of child living in my house......the teenager. Some of the things I read blew my mind!!!!! I could NOT believe what I was in for. At one point I just buried my face in my hands and kept saying......"I give up. I can't do this".  Then I called my sister and talked to her at length about her daughter who is about 6 years older than Raven. She told me things that made a lot of sense. First off....it's all about them!! They're slobs. All they want to do is lounge around. Chores are well, chores, and they hate doing them. Anything that requires them to leave their caves is considered torture. Take nothing they say personally. They're the victims. "So unfair" will be in almost every sentence my daughter says until she's 20 years old. We parents are uncool and aren't allowed to talk around they're friends. If they come to you and say..."I love you!", they probably want something. And again......take nothing they say to heart, they probably don't mean it.

So when my son said to me yesterday..."Mommy, SisSis's room is gross. It has half drinks and dirty things in it.", I was not surprised. As a matter of fact, I just laughed. I did make her clean her room as soon as she got home from school though. :) As much as I'd like to control things around me, I have to remember that parenting isn't about control, it's about letting things go and picking and choosing my battles. Some things aren't worth getting angry over. Oh....and never say never!