I’m so excited to be guest posting for Stephanie while she moves into her beautiful new home! You can usually find me over at Adventures With Three Girls, a clever title I came up with because I have three girls.
When people find out I have three girls four and under, I always get a reaction. How busy I must be, how I have my hands full, and my favorite, just wait until they’re teenagers. I smile and laugh along with them. Yep, those hormones are going to be something else. It’s going to be like World War III in my house. Can you imagine all the crying? My husband already has it set up to take a week vacation at my mother-in-law’s house once a month. Hahaha.
People. It’s not funny. It scares the crap out of me. My oldest will be thirteen in less than eight and half years. That’s less than a decade before the hormones start. My youngest will hit thirteen in eleven and half years. When she does I will have a sixteen year old, fourteen year old, and thirteen year old. All living under one roof at the same time. And, unless we move, at least two will be sharing a room.
If you do the math, that’s two full years of three teenage girls before the oldest one goes to college, or gets kicked out of the house. Whatever, at eighteen, she’s gone. I’m sure I won’t be able to deal with it any more.
You might think I’m overreacting a little. I mean, don’t worry about it until it happens, right? Here’s the problem with that. The things I thought I’d have to deal with when they were teenagers have already started. It’s bad. And it’s only going to get worse.
1. The Clothes
Teenagers change clothes almost as often as they change their moods. Nothing looks right, what they want is dirty. There are clothes everywhere.
My girls are already there. Every morning we go through multiple outfit per girl. It’s not right, it has a stain, they want the one in the hamper that’s dirty. The four year old has a fit that it’s dirty and she can’t wear it. The two year old has a fit that I won’t let her fish is out of the hamper and wear it, covered in yogurt.
There are clothes on the floor. The hampers overflow, even though I seem to do five loads of laundry a day.
2. The Hair
Teenagers spend an inordinate amount of time on their hair. Every hair has to be in place. I know I have my own hole in the ozone from all the hairspray I used as a teenager.
My four year old does her own hair every morning. I don’t brush it right. She spends at least fifteen minutes brushing, creating pony tails with pieces sticking out, and figuring out ways to use every barrette in the house at the same time. This is the same child who can’t entertain herself for fifteen minutes so I can sit down and scarf lunch at two in the afternoon. The two year old is fast on her heels, fighting for barrettes for her own hair. And the baby? Even she’s in on the action, grabbing a brush and hitting her head with it. (She’s not that coordinated.)
3. The Fighting
With three teenage girls in the house, I expect there to be a lot of fighting, over clothes, over space, over television. Basically, I expect them to fight over everything they can possibly disagree on.
But it’s already started. I break up roughly thirty million fights a day during the fourteen hours they’re awake. They fight over dolls, they fight over books, they fight over who gets to turn off the television. They even fight over the chores I give them. Apparently, feeding the dog is a good gig. Even the little one fights for things. She’s a hair puller and a biter. Gotta use what you got when you’re the smallest.
4. The Screaming
Teenagers scream, a lot. They yell that they hate you. Screaming is a primary form of communication.
Turns out, screaming is a primary form of communication for girls of any age. Every morning , I am awoken, not by the sweet song of a blue bird out my window, but by the screams of a child. My girls are not morning people. They wake up rough. The first screamer, in the process of screaming, wakes up her two sisters, who start screaming because they got woken. On the days my husband works, the screaming intensifies when they realize he left before they got up. And it only goes downhill from there. Only when the television is on and they have a snack in hand, is no one screaming. You may have guessed, but they watch more than the prescribed two hours of television a day.
I’m pretty sure by the time the oldest is eight I’m going to have hearing loss. Like the kind you get from going to too many concerts.
5. The Sulking
Teenagers are moody. It’s all those hormones. Moodiness results in sulking. Tell them no, they sulk. They have a bad day, they sulk. Angry, sulk. There’s a lot of sulking.
Surprisingly, the sulking starts young. Both my older two, when angry, stomp around the house, slam the door to their room, flop onto their bed, and lay there, sulking. Four and two, people. Four and two. The little one slams doors too, but for now it’s just because she likes the noise it makes.
I think you can understand the sheer terror and panic attacks I have when I imagine my house full of three teenage girls. So, when you see me out at the grocery store, instead of laughing at me about how terrible it’s going to be, take pity on me. Remind me, there’s one big advantage to having three teenagers. They will sleep. A lot. No way I’ll have to deal with them for fourteen hours straight. Between school and sleeping, I probably will only have two or three hours max when they’re awake. I hope.
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