Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde

I think that the first person diagnosed with multiple personality disorder was a tween.

I have no idea when it happened.  It was like one night I sent my little boy to bed, perfectly content with playing with star wars action figures, having Nerf wars, and watching Fireman Sam on Sprout.  Then in the morning this surly, dour, tween came out of his room after sleeping in until 10am.

Your Royal Highness (as we like to refer to him) is now 12 years old.  He had his birthday over a very long car ride from our House to Denver for a family vacation.  This did not please his majesty, but he will definitely get over it.  YRH (for short) was always such a sweet boy.  He was always a very good boy too.  With a shock of red hair on top of his little pale freckled head and sparkly blue eyes, he was just the cutest little boy.  He was always happy, always positive and looked on the bright side. One night I sent him to bed, kissed and hugged him good night at the usual 9pm.  At 10 am the next morning, Mr. Hyde came out of his room.

The thing that they don't tell you about tweens is that they absolutely pull Jeckle and Hyde with you on a daily, sometimes hourly, some times minute-ly basis.  One second they are too school for cool, and the next they are wanting to curl up in your lap and have you play with their hair.  One second they are talking about the "CPR" (chick progress report), and then in an instant they are playing with little green army men and having a "war" in the playroom.  One minute they are watching "The Avengers" with you at the theater, then come home and turn on "Paw Patrol".

YOU NEVER KNOW WHO IS GOING TO SHOW UP!!!

Parent.  Beware. 

This can make talking to them a very very tricky tightrope to walk.  On Monday when you joked with your tween about how when his hair grows a little too long, it kind of bushes out like Lego hair, you both laughed and had a good chuckle about it.

But beware.

 If you bring it up again later on your way to the barber, He may glare at you and say, "You are so mean to me.  Why do you always have to pick on me."  To which you will then spend the entirety of the car ride to the barber apologizing and trying to make up for it by telling him all of the wonderful things that you DO love about him.

One afternoon you ask your tween if he will please go up and straighten up all of the legos in his room so that you can vacuum, and he responds with a smile and "sure mom!" but then the following week you ask with the same demeanor and tone of voice and are then presented with an eye roll, and a sassy, "Gaaaaawd, I have to do EEEEEEEEVVVVERYYYYYY thing around here!!!!"  followed by stomping up the stairs.  In this case it is very very easy to retaliate with listing all of the things that YOU do indeed do around the house and how in fact YOU are the one to do EEEEEEEEVVVVERYYYYYY thing around the house.

 THIS IS A TRAP!!  Do not engage!!

 This is merely a ploy to get you talking and so frustrated and angry that you delay the cleaning , or to just ultimately cause you to forget to make him go up and clean at all.  At all costs bite your lip and move on.


Also, tweens are very aware of the  feelings that you are having on just realizing that they are growing up

quickly and your dawning panic.  They will not hesitate to use this against you.

YRH: Mom, my throat is scratchy.
Me: (in the middle of folding laundry, making breakfast, and doing dishes) Ok, well, I showed you how to make tea with honey, go make some.
YRH:  But mommy (there, see what he did there? ) my throat hurts.  Will you please make me some tea?
Me: But honey I am right in the middle of all of this.  Just go make some tea.  It literally takes two minutes.
YRH: (sighs) ok.  I guess I will just go do it by myself.  I just love how you make it, and I just can't make it as good as you.
Me: Give me the mug....

Do you see what happened there?  He has even conned me into make Eggo waffles for him, because I "get them more crunchy than he does".  So beware of these techniques.  They will use your dawning panic about them getting older to dupe you.  They know how to make tea and Eggo waffles.  They are twelve for crying out loud!

But I feel like the thing I was the most unprepared for was the smart mouth.

When I was in college I was coined the nickname "Comeback Queen".  I was extremely rapid fire with snarky responses to most any situation. (I was also nicknamed "mulch girl" for different reasons....that may or may not have involved passing out in a bush and sleeping there all night....)  I was very skilled with a smart mouth.  I was also an expert eye roller and sigh-er. It was a skill I developed in high school (aka sassy mouth, smart alek, and smart ass) but I was more shrewd with how I used it.  My mom was not one to put up with sass.   All of these had to be used with discretion because if I wanted a social life at all, I could not exercise my gift willy nilly.

The problem with having this talent is....it is genetic.  My son has inherited this gift.  He is playing around with his power of words, and unfortunately, he is not shrewd about using it.  So he does not wait until I turn around to do the eye roll.  He does not wait until I am out of ear shot to sigh and mumble.  He is flagrant with it.  As a matter of fact, today he tried to be a little smarter about it, and put on sunglasses in the house and tried the eye roll, to which I said, "Hey there chief? I can see your eyes behind your glasses.  Not stealthy.  And now I will take your Ipod please..."

I am telling you all of this, not to complain, but to  educate.

You see, everyone talks about the teen years, and I understand that it has its own special set of

challenges.  But NO ONE talks about the "birthing pains" that are a prequel to the teen years.  The tween years are the "groanings" of the teen trying to emerge from it's chrysalis.  The  beginning of the end of childhood.  No one talks about the challenges that are heading your way as you look at your precious child who one day wants you to cut his steak for him, and the next is wanting to get a job to start saving for a car that he will buy in 4 years. 

I was not prepared.  But my story is a cautionary tale for other parents.  Your baby will turn into a tween.  They will have drama and sweetness all in the same hour.  They will talk about girls, and talk about playing in the mud in the same day.  It is quite possibly the most head spinning experience I have ever witnessed.  In the same moment, it makes me both proud and sad.  Proud that not only have I had a child, but I have kept it alive to this point!!  And as a bonus, he is relatively happy (when he is not surly because we are out of milk for his rice krispies or because I said that pop tarts are not an acceptable breakfast) and is for the biggest part a good, polite, and caring person.  But I am sad because I realize that I only have a few years left of him being here all the time.  He isn't a baby.  But he isn't a teen.  He is a tween.  

Unfortunately, I do not have experience with tween girls yet, only a boy.  So come back to me in 5 years.  The twin girls should prove to be a WHOLE different experience.

Crap, I am going to be cutting steak for other people the rest of my life........