When daughter #1 left for college a couple of years ago, I told a friend that our house felt like it was missing a huge source of energy. Fortunately/unfortunately, I've gotten used to a no-teen house.
Social butterfly was the description used by #1's 6th-grade teachers during one of those 'I'm-so-sorry' parent-teacher conferences. In high school, especially her senior year, she became a custom-fitted, hyper-charged social bumblebee . . . on steroids (note to all her former coaches and UIL officials -- that was joke). Her activities were the driving force behind just about everything on our schedules, and it seemed like we often went into the fourth quarter working on adrenaline alone. 'Our' senior year was exhausting.
She's home for a couple of weeks during her winter break, and she really hasn't done anything disruptive or illegal or of questionable safety or sense -- yet -- (except bring home what I hope is a friend's dog . . . she said the friend told HER mom that the dog belongs to ANOTHER friend . . . both friends have gone on vacations with their parents during the break), but the energy has returned.
Not the feel-great, charged-up, let's-tackle-Everest energy, but the kind that crashes atoms into whatever atoms crash into and makes basic elements realign with other basic elements to create whatever B-movie creature that inevitably crawls out of the sand following a nuclear test.
I THINK it's the dog (un-house-trained, rat-sized, three-sweatered chihuahua-dachschund mix), although it's not a bad dog. And I THINK it's daughter #2, now an only child and an early-years victim of our attention to #1, who dearly loves and admires her older sister and who's determined to keep our floor from dirtying the dog's paws. But I KNOW that it's because my Lost-in-Space-Danger-Will-Robinson force field and daughter-repellant wife is out of town (my wife's been the 'don't worry, I'll talk to dad; he'll be fine' kind of mom for our daughters).
Actually, everybody's gone now: #1 took dog to do something possibly disruptive or illegal or of questionable safety or sense. #2's at a birthday sleepover, and wife is still out of town; went out with her sister this evening, probably to do something disruptive or illegal or of questionable safety or sense.
Hello-hello-hello-hello . . . okay, let's turn the energy back up. You can come back now. I'm done enjoying my quiet evening . . .
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2 comments:
I've heard that girls are harder to live with than boys and I believe it (being the mother of one boy). Just based on how much easier it is to work with men than women is a prime example
Laurie
Everybody (EVERYBODY) says that girls are harder to live with than boys . . . but when they're young, nobody loves her daddy more than a little girl. Ironically, my wife doesn't like working with other women and my older daughter doesn't like hanging out with girls or boyfriends . . . just the guys. My younger daughter already thinks boys are 'hot,' but she'll learn . . . we're all scum.
Have we discussed 6:45 this morning? 'Uhhh . . . I couldn't sleep over there.'
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