Martyr 101 - Hormones
Can't
live with them and can't shoot them.
My house is seeping with the things. The walls ooze with attitude
and defiance.
I have been told that, technically speaking; hormones are chemicals
that precipitate physical changes in a person's body. As a mother
to five children, I see hormones as a poltergeist harboring a grudge.
My fifteen year old is a raging bundle of emotional contradictions.
One minute she's giggling, the next she's sobbing hysterically. What
annoys me the most about this is that when I ask her what's wrong
she gives the typically female answer, "Nothing."
Being of the female persuasion myself I see right through this
one. I'm well aware of how her mind is working, having mastered "Martyr
101" myself years ago. I try to keep this in mind as I ask her, with
my voice dripping with compassion and love "Why are you crying?"
We continue our verbal sparring; I ask and she responds with the
same answer until my teeth are so clenched with frustration I'm worried
they will pop out of my head.
After watching her fiddle with her hair, extricate wayward lint
from her belly button and pick at her toenails as she wears what
I call the mask of "Supreme pathetic" on her face, I snap.
I growled, "What are you crying about? If you tell me nothing one
more time I will ground you to your room until you are 25 with nothing
but peas and toothpaste for sustenance." The compassion I had felt
at the beginning of the exchange had disappeared into the black hole
to reside with the missing socks, sippy cups and pacifiers that disappear
as soon as I buy them.
She looks at me as if she has no clue of what I'm talking about,
her face pulling into an almost passable look of true surprise --
until she sees the veins pulsing in the middle of my forehead. She
responds with a barely discernible "I don't know."
Now, as odd as this may seem to those of you without prepubescent
kids, it makes perfect sense to me. The answer "Nothing" infuriates
me and insults my intelligence, but "I don't know" I can understand.
Usually with some master detective work I can find the event that
triggered the outburst. It invariably has something to do with one
of her siblings, more pointedly, her brothers.
This one coughed on her Fruit Loops. That one gave her a wedgie
and while she was extricating herself he turned The Food Channel
to wrestling. Despite the fact that I have forbidden my youngest
son to call her "Medusa", he merely finds ways to imply the same
thing without using the "M" word. This week he's calling her "Girl
with snakes in her hair."
I have to admit that my three year old running around the house
with her fathers underwear on her head singing "Mama Mia" at the
top of her lungs is enough to make me cry if I'm trying to catch
her little sister before she takes off her disgusting diaper and
makes it into a hat; and my hormones started their rampage while
dinosaurs ruled the Earth.
While I can remember the catastrophic impact puberty had on me
while I was her age, I'm now on the receiving end. By the end I feel
an almost irresistible urge to retreat to the shoe closet to dodge
the paranormal energies as well as the flying flip flop followed
by the airborne flea collar -- with the cat still attached.
Of course the last attempt at hibernation in the shoe closet prompted
them to lock me in there; I lived on flat soda and Cheetos fed to
me through the doorknob hole for a week.
Most people run from evil spirits. Unfortunately, I gave birth
to this one and I enjoy the twelve and a half minutes each day that
she's sane enough to stick around.
Until, of course, her head spins 360 degrees and bilious barf comes
flying from her face -- then I'm outta here.
About the Author: Vicki Gladden is the mother of five children
living in Mississippi, where the bugs are plentiful and bigger than
her 2 year old's head. She has been writing for years and writes
a column for the local newspaper, as well as various sites on the
web. She writes whatever comes to mind so you never know what you
are going to find. She welcomes all comments concerning her site
or her work and invites you to see her new passion Simply
Southern Candles
Vicki Gladden 2000 © Mississippi Press
|
