The Stages that Try Mom's Soul
Any parent will tell you that there are certain stages in child development that will just about drive any parent up the freakin' wall. Sometimes those all-knowing little parenting books most of which were written back in the Pleistocene era will hint at an upcoming rough patch, but usually either Mom or Dad ends up experiencing these little patches. Recently, I was reminded once more of the often excruciating paradoxical nature of the "tweener". My ten year old daughter is 17 one minute and 3 the next. She's rebellious one minute and then five minutes go by and she's yelling "where is MY BLANKIE??" I wish I was making that up. I'm sure one of the hallmarks of terrible parenting is having a 10 year old child who is still attached to his or her "blankie". I prefer to think of it as my own little experiment in attachment gone awry, however. Can you blame me? One minute she is howling about her iPod headphones and then she reverts back to year...