Tweens

My poor kids have hit the tweens. They are 10 and 11 -- not quite teens, not quite little kids. They are both in the DREADED TWEENS! Dwelling in the in between stinks. You are too old for some kinds of fun and too young for others. You know enough to be bored with certain childish entertainments, but you don't quite know enough to get all the jokes that adults can make. Peer pressure starts to set in. Hormones start to rage. You like someone special and are crushed when they don't like you. You wouldn't know what to do if they did like you (that way) but you certainly feel crushed that they don't like you that way.

I hated the tweens. These were by far the worst years of my life (besides the times since when close family have been lost and sick). I wanted to die when I was a tween. I had wondrous notions of being killed in a freak accident to avoid the horrors of my fate in middle school. I wished I was dead, but I didn't have the courage to take my life. I wanted to be dead, I was just too wimpy to make it happen. I'm glad I didn't end my life, but I don't look back to those years with any kind of affection.

Seventh and 8th grades were the worst years of my life. I made the foolish mistake of drawing attention to myself by running for class office. I then broke out in zits. On top of my glasses and need for braces, this gave me a bad case of the tween uglies. Eventually the complexion cleared, braces came and went, and I got contacts. The ugly duckling was a hottie by grade 12. I'd given myself an ulcer and lost my extra weight. How sad is it that sometimes I miss that ulcer? Oh to be at goal weight again! Anyway...

We are heading into the last week of school. My daughter is getting all the attention because she is a 5th grader. The farewell breakfast is planned, the memory books are in print I suppose. My son is in a 4th / 5th split class so half of his class leaves the school this year. He likes them and will miss them. His crush doesn't like him that way. Poor guy! And so, my tweens are emotional and a tad ruined this week. You might as well look at my home as a big time wrestling cage match. Pray we make it through the week.

Tell me it calms down. Tell me that 11 year old Super Girl will get over this year long case of PMS... Someone throw me a bone! Do tweens really have to be this mean? Physical fighting between them. Ugh. I'm betting it is tween angst. I need help thinking of good consequences.... wish more of my friends had older kids!

Other news:

My sister is due 6/18 and 50% effaced! AH the beginning of the birth process! YIPPEE!

My mother inlaw is hospitalized. She went more than a year without one so I should be grateful. She had a bowel obstruction, triple hernia surgery, and is now being monitored due to a heart fibrillation. My had is off the my MIL as she is the energizer bunny. She keeps going! I give her credit and wish her well (yes, I know the nickname of Satan isn't nice, but you would call her that too -- and I never make the Satan jokes when she is in the hospital.)

Midterms were this week. I am glad to have them done!

I finished Cooper's "The Pioneers" and am reading Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" and Chopin's "The Awakening." I'll be one well read English major by semester's end! Alas, we never say alas anymore....