My daughter is 12 years old. She's always been relatively helpful, albeit with a little prodding. But eventually she does help out with cooking or dishes or whatever I ask her to do. She's pretty smart, too. Samiya wins at dominoes, chess and any video game EVER. She's a righteous goalie and has a pretty devastating right cross. Lately, she has been involved in about 2/3 of the altercations happening in the house. If she's not fighting with Aiman, then she's fighting with Ismail or crying because Mohamed kicks ass now and takes names later. Most of the fighting (I'd say about 74% of it) she's involved in, is the fault of her big mouth. She IS her mother's daughter. I've been working on the whole "name-calling" thing forever, it seems. We've determined that her Indian love names for her brothers are "Jerk," "Stupid," and "Idiot." We're confused as to whether or not they actually like these names because while they protest them, they still answer to them.
Anyway, after the 4 zillionth fight to be broken up yesterday, I was cooking and pissed off and slamming things around the kitchen. Samiya was made to wash dishes to keep her away from her brothers who were united in wanting to kill her. So, intelligently she let me cool off for a few minutes before she attempted any conversation. Finally I cracked wise with her about something, and she looked at me and asked, "When we all grow up and get married and move out, God willing, aren't you going to be bored?"
"WHAT?!" I asked in my Barbara Walters meets McCain voice.
"Bored. You know, when you don't have all these teenage fights and arguments to keep you busy. Aren't you and Baba going to be bored when we move out?" I looked at her to see if this was an attempt at humor but her face looked completely serious.
I started to laugh. I laughed one of those hearty, loud laughs that eventually turns to silent laughing facial gestures with a struggle to get oxygen to your lungs as tears stream out of your eyes and urethra simultaneously. She got pissed and slammed the sponge down onto the counter top and stormed out of the kitchen. I regained my composure and called her into the kitchen while I fanned the flush out of my cheeks with a tea towel. "Honey, I apologize if you felt like I was laughing at you when you were asking me a serious question. You just have no idea the hilarity of your question. Your father and I have been patiently surviving your teen age fighting, desperately WAITING to be bored in the silence of you all moving out."
She got mad again and walked out. Guess I'm up for MOTY Award again....in the Sarcasm Genre.
Anyway, after the 4 zillionth fight to be broken up yesterday, I was cooking and pissed off and slamming things around the kitchen. Samiya was made to wash dishes to keep her away from her brothers who were united in wanting to kill her. So, intelligently she let me cool off for a few minutes before she attempted any conversation. Finally I cracked wise with her about something, and she looked at me and asked, "When we all grow up and get married and move out, God willing, aren't you going to be bored?"
"WHAT?!" I asked in my Barbara Walters meets McCain voice.
"Bored. You know, when you don't have all these teenage fights and arguments to keep you busy. Aren't you and Baba going to be bored when we move out?" I looked at her to see if this was an attempt at humor but her face looked completely serious.
I started to laugh. I laughed one of those hearty, loud laughs that eventually turns to silent laughing facial gestures with a struggle to get oxygen to your lungs as tears stream out of your eyes and urethra simultaneously. She got pissed and slammed the sponge down onto the counter top and stormed out of the kitchen. I regained my composure and called her into the kitchen while I fanned the flush out of my cheeks with a tea towel. "Honey, I apologize if you felt like I was laughing at you when you were asking me a serious question. You just have no idea the hilarity of your question. Your father and I have been patiently surviving your teen age fighting, desperately WAITING to be bored in the silence of you all moving out."
She got mad again and walked out. Guess I'm up for MOTY Award again....in the Sarcasm Genre.
Please please please, when you are considering your next move, come to Ontario and be my neighbor. We'll sic all the kids on each other and then sit on the porch drinking wine and dreaming of the days when they all move out and we can remember what quiet sounds like.
ReplyDeleteYou're on...
ReplyDelete