|
i swear, my kids will never move out. kitten, i always expected to do well, she's been level headed and sunny personalitied since the day she was born. a people lover, a smart girl (grades not withstanding), and brave with a dose of caution.
no parent can be so lucky to have 2 kids like that. i love my children, but am very aware of their . . . uniqueness.
now, with my son, i actually don't expect him to move out. and if he did, i'd pretty much be a freak about it myself. there's just too many issues there. he may grow out of them enough to have some kind of independence, but i'd probably want to build him a room over the garage or his own little cabin behind our home rather than let him go off where we can't keep any eye on him at all. my kids would probably say i'm over protective (but any common sense parent would be when they live in gangland like we did last year), but in his case, well, protection is more common sense than anything. with a room over the garage or his own little place behind the house, he could have some sense of independence and privacy, and we could still keep an eye on him. but we'll have to see how far he goes - he may never get to the point that living alone in any capacity would be a good idea.
but the other two, them i expect to move out some day. heck, jewel is counting on it since she wants to return back to cali as soon as possible. but jewel is a concern right now. she's still behind developmentally. not badly behind, but behind. she doesn't have kitten's wisdom, and may never get it. she'd rather buy the name brand than the same product at half the price. she has no grasp of money, despite having been given opportunities to learn it. (i will say, she did do a good job on buying shoes recently - she went to payless during a sale and paid attention to price; and i praised her for showing such smarts too!) her attitude will get her fired at any job she takes at this point (do you know many employers who will tolerate eye rolling, stomping, and huffing and sighing when they tell an employee to do something?). she seems to have problems reaching the "smart" course of action in any given situation. and the girl complains about everything.
i really don't know what i did wrong here. we tried to see her and raise her as an individual. we explained things to her just like we did kitten - "you can't do this because you're not old enough yet," "we can't get that because we don't have the money, maybe another time," and so on. we've encouraged steps on independence that we thought she was ready for - like a summer job this year, but she often doesn't take them while complaining we should give her more freedom in areas that we don't think she's ready for. before taz was diagnosed, i often felt as if i couldn't reach him, and that's the way jewel often makes me feel now. to make matters worse, the same problems that kitten and saxy had are cropping up with saxy and jewel as well. it's disturbing and making me crazy and i often feel powerless to help either one and like i'm being a horrid mother when it comes to jewel. like we were somehow mismatched. i love her, i just can't seem to help her grow up.
and i've only got 2 more years for her to grow up enough to survive away from home. i'm so hoping she'll blossom and soon. she's developed physically - looking much like i did at her age, if you listen to my brother - but that only worries me more. she needs to get at least somewhere near the target mentally and emotionally or i'm going to be a nervous wreck when she finally moves out. if she moves out. okay, so she will move out - she wants to now, but at the rate it's going, she won't be ready for it and i'll be a nervous wreck everyday of it.
worse yet, she's going to be a boomerang kid and move right back in with bills on top of everything else. ug.
not too sure about youngest yet. she's adjusted to the move, seems to have done well in school (we're still awaiting the final word on tests), and tends to be quite the cheerful, if forgetful and flighty, child. the forgetful and flighty is the adhd, i know - keeping up on meds for that is going to be a bit of a challenge i think. i can see her being the kid who sneaks out at night, the one we wait up till 3 in the morning worrying about despite a 11 pm curfew, and all that. but in her case, she'd do it with a sunny personality that just won't quit, dampened long enough when chastised, but back in force the next time she steps over the line. (oh, yes, we are experiencing this now, can you tell?) moving out? probably. ready for it? we'll see. as with the levelheaded child, a parent can hopefully not expect to have 2 children like jewel as well, right?
so, what brought this on? a wasp.
that's right. a wasp.
it had somehow gotten in and i was busy and told jewel to deal with it. she wouldn't come in 5 feet of it. okay. 2 feet. but ever try to swat anything with a fly swatter from several feet away and actually have it work? nothing i did or said would get her any closer to dealing with it. me being in the middle of something wasn't a motivator either. froggy i can understand being scared of bugs to a degree - she has a near-paranoia fear of cockroaches (a gift from the apartment in cali). but, to my knowledge, jewel generally can kill just about anything. almost. spiders give her a bit of a fit, but i think spiders give most people fits. still, how is this kid going to be able to live in her own place if she can't even deal with a wasp?
i can just see it now: a wasp gets in her place and she comes to stay with us until it goes away. but, of course, she has to leave the windows and whatnot open so it can get out, and returns to an apartment ransacked and robbed.
she's never going to move out and stay out! i swear!
word of the moment: piquant
agreeably pungent, sharp, or appetizing; pleasantly stimulating, or disquieting, to the mind |
|
|
|
|