7 Going On 14

There have been a few firsts for Mr. Mom lately.

The other day, Ms. A gets home from school and while we are going through her homework, the phone rings. Mr. Mom answers and it is her bestest little friend ever asking for Ms. A. I give the phone to A and she walks off to an unoccupied area for some privacy. As she does so, I think, "Wow. Our little girl. Seems like we just brought her home from the hospital yesterday. Now she is getting phone calls and going off to gossip on the phone." To this point, A's telephone exposure has been talking to grandpa or grandma, or maybe a quick hello to one of her friends after the adults have arranged a playdate. I was thinking to myself, "Is this the beginning? I've heard about this girls-on-the-phone phenomenon. Now what do I do? What kind of elaborate bulletproof telephone rules matrix do I need to establish before this gets out of control and A is on the phone every day after school for hours on end?" After about 15 minutes, I arbitrarily decide that this is enough. Time to get off the phone. So I pick up another phone handset that I had next to me on the kitchen counter (because I am always slaving away in the kitchen), break into the conversation, and instruct A to say goodbye, we have to eat dinner and get ready for ballet class. I leave it at that, with the assumption that A is a good responsible kid, and above all else a rules follower. Then about 2 minutes later, she walks into the kitchen, hands me the phone, and says "Torie's mom wants to talk to you." OK. How did this develop? So I get on the phone, say hello, and am greeted with a reciprocating hello, followed by a question/statement of "so, the girls were talking about Torie coming over after school soon.....?" I do my best of-course-I-know-what's-going-on routine, and long story short, Torie comes over after school yesterday. Well played A.

Another event requires much less story telling, but may be even more monumental. Last week Ms. A attended her first large group sleepover in celebration of a classmate (Savannah) birthday. It was by all accounts a glorious event, with pizza, cake, games, TV/movies, staying up way too late, and a breakfast of cinnamon rolls in the morning. What more could 8 2nd grade girls ask for? Mr. Mom is still not sure about this, as I am sure I did not do a similar thing until 4th grade, but it seemed to go well, and A does not appear to be permanently scarred after Mr. Mom and Mrs. Dad completed an intense deprogramming session.

The third, and more troubling event occurred this morning. Our morning routine is for A and I to drop B&C off at school and then head home to catch the bus. Well, today A decided to convert to full whining mode as soon as we got in the truck. After the fourth bout of severe whining about various wrongdoings that were being perpetrated on her, Mr. Mom was getting relatively tired of it. The hope was that when the boys got out for school, she would stop and we could have our normal nice trip home. Silly dad. It continued, only with greater fervor. When we tried to do a spelling bee to practice her list for a test later today, and she began to whine about not wanting to say when certain words had capital letters, I maturely took her spelling list paper, crumpled it up, tossed it back to her, and told her that I would like to listen to the radio now. I waived the white flag. Admittedly not my proudest moment, but necessary for paternal sanity.

It is clear why God made this special bond between father and daughter. So you can put up with the occasional sass.

On a more positive note, A is busy learning ballet/tap/jazz, excelling in school, making new friends, and being a soccer superstar (refer to attached action photo). Like B, we signed up A for soccer this fall and it has been fantastic. The girls that make up the Pandas team roster are great and we have met some really nice parents. It also turns out A is a very competitive individual. The look of determination on her face during a game is surprising and kind of fun to see. She has gravitated to playing forward as much as possible because "they score the goals". True to form, A scored a crunch-time goal with 2 minutes to play last week to earn a hard fought 1-1 tie against the hated Jaguars. I think that is goal #4 through 5 games this season. Soccer fever. Catch it.