I'm Considering An Exorcism For My Teen Daughter

Tonight my daughter is at her first high school football jamboree. Although I've already been through high school with the three older boys, I'm having some difficulty with Kid 4, the first girl, entering high school.

After just one week I’ve come to the conclusion I only have two choices in how to deal with this.

Option 1: Remind her, ever so lovingly, that I offer a safe place for her to channel her strong-willed nature. However, she has been raised by a strong-willed mother, who at one time tortured her own mother, so no amount of eye rolling or “Oh My Gawd” will be enough to break me. I am stronger than she is.

I think I’m stronger than she is.

Option 2: Dig deep down in to my Catholic roots and perform an exorcism. Because the only explanation for this new behavior spewing from my daughter is she is possessed.

My daughter has always been bossy. Although we prefer to call it, ’strong leadership abilities combined with a lack of maturity to know when to just shut the ef up!'

Each of my older boys survived their teen years. Even more impressive I survived my boys teen years. But this. This is different.

All summer she was my blonde-haired beauty who joined in family conversations. OK maybe she didn’t actually always join in the family fun, but she at least acknowledged we were her family.

But then, a couple days in to her freshman year, she changed. I saw it in her eyes first. She looked at us like we were pond scum.

Then her posture changed. I reached out to hug her and she recoiled like I had leprosy.

Finally, her voice. My years of teaching the kids that it’s not what you say it’s how you say it seemed to have been forgotten. Or, maybe she did mean to say it in the most snotty, condescending way possible.

Yeah, she definitely meant it that way.

Last night her brothers asked me what her problem was. I tried to explain that she’s a teenage girl and teen girls are going through many hormonal changes that can turn them into horrible creatures for a few years.

Her 12-year-old brother summed it up best by saying she’s becoming a mean girl.

It all became clear. I remembered that scene from Mean Girls when Ms. Norbury asks the group to raise their hand if they’ve ever been personally victimized by Regina George.

I slowly raised my hand.

No, no, no. Little girl you will not Regina George me! You will not make your older brothers question the sanity of the entire female gender. You will not prove my own mother true when she said to me, “you’ll understand one day when you have a daughter.”

You can let yourself believe that you know it all, you can believe I am the most horrid mother on the face of the earth, but I have 46 years of stubbornness and leadership ability under my belt.

At least one of us will survive your teen years.

But if it starts to look a little iffy, I have no problem googling “exorcisms for teen girls.”

Don't anyone tell her I posted this picture. But it's
very typical Kid 4 - snap chatting her displeasure at
her mom for the world to see.

Girl Stuff: My Boys Just Don't Get It

"Every day I wake up thankful to be born with a penis." 

-- Kid 2 after a weekend spent listening 

to girl drama

My BFF Kerri is also my hair stylist. Because we are both so busy working and taking care of our families, we rarely have time to see each other anymore. So, problem solved, we schedule my hair appointments for Friday nights after her shop is closed and the kids are taken care of. It's our social time.

We pick up some sushi, turn the iPod on, mix the color and start talking. This week I told her I wanted my red hair to be more red. Like Julianne Moore deep, vibrant red. Kerri is the expert so while I opened up the sushi she mixed the color.

I trust her completely. I trust her so much when I said "hey this is really red" and she said don't worry that I didn't worry.

But it was really red. Like, Bozo red. So.... I laughed and took some pictures while Kerri remixed more color. Five hours later when I finally returned home  - looking absolutely fabulous with my new auburn do - the kids said I was gone "forever".  So each kid one at a time had to hear the story of my hair drama that evening.

The next day we set off for the mall to find a dress for Kid 4 to wear to her Honor Society banquet this week. Kid 4 is the 13-year-old girl and acts, well, like a 13-year-old girl.

Three hours, two boutiques, Macy's and JC Penney's later and we still hadn't found anything for her to wear. To be fair, our school has a pretty strict dress code. Because Kid 4 is tall like me, it can be tough finding a dress that is the required length.

She was frustrated. I was annoyed. Kid 2 thought it was "ridiculous" and Kid 5 was "bored." Why kids two and five, both boys, wanted to even come on this trip I don't know.

To make the day even more fun, we also were finally let in on the girl drama between Kid 4 and her BFF, who just happens to be the daughter of my BFF Kerri. We heard all about the nonsense that often happens between 13-year-old girls when a boy enters the picture.

At this point Kid 5, my 11-year-old boy, had officially lost his patience. He wanted out of the mall and he wanted out now.

I tried to explain to him that this is just life with girls. Whether it's his mom, his sisters or his future girlfriends he will have to sit and wait outside a fitting room. He will have to listen to girl drama and boy troubles. He will have to talk about hair color and be asked repeatedly if he likes a new haircut. Does it look good? Does 'it looks fine' mean it doesn't look good?

The struggle is real to be a girl. It's his lot in life to be a boy and have to listen to the struggle.

Watching and listening to all this, Kid 2 looked over and casually said "Every day I wake up thankful to be born with a penis."

I can't argue with that logic.

Finally Kid 4 decided she would just wear something she already has in her closet at home. As the younger brother Kid 5 realized this whole trip was for nothing, I thought he was going to really lose it. But, instead, he looked at me and said "I'm never coming to the mall with you again. Girl stuff is boring."

He's a boy. He doesn't get it.

Boys 4 (1 not pictured) Girls 2
Yet, girl drama reigns
in the Fields home

My MSOD Girls Make the Blog & Make Me Smile

I've been working all year with a group of teenage girls at a local dance school. Giggly, goofy, hormonal, flaky, beautiful, wonderful teenage girls. They are my last class on Monday night - my looonnggg day of work. They are #7 of 7 classes I teach that day. So by the time I see them I am tired and out of energy.

And then they start laughing. Or telling me stories of what happened at school that day. Or asking me about my teen boys (whom they are never allowed to meet). And suddenly I'm not so tired.

I'm Facebook friends with a couple of them and a few of them are YogaLifeWay blog readers. As the year wore on they kept asking "when will you blog about us Miss Jennifer" and "hey maybe I'll make the blog tonight."

Well, lovely girls, tonight is your night!

Our focus this year was on building core strength, preventing injuries and applying muscle control and isolation to their dance moves. Basically, we made their jumps higher, the splits longer and their pirouettes prettier.

As we got closer to the end of the year and they were working harder on perfecting their dances for recital, I lightened up a bit and didn't always require we do pilates hundreds or full vinyasas.

Instead we choreographed a yoga dance. My only rule was the dance had to be all (mostly) yoga poses. What started out as a silly little one night only diversion, turned into weeks of rehearsal and even turned me into a wanna-be choreographer. I couldn't hear our song on the radio without thinking of new yoga poses/dance moves.

By the last night our fun little activity turned into an impromptu show as the parents lined up outside the classroom window to watch. And, yes, I was quite proud when the dance school director called it "a way cool modern dance number."

So, without further adieu, I present to you the girls of MSOD Yoga/Pilates class and their yoga dance.