Do you know how many results you get when you search the word “Tweens” on Google? An astronomical 12,700,000 entries and counting. That is absolutely mind boggling. I have two boys, ages 11 and nearly 10. The youngest son is turning 10 in May and he cannot wait to enter the double digit phase. “Why on earth did you search for “Tweens” on Google?”, you may ask.
Let me tell you, these specimens are from a different planet altogether. I thought as a self defined supermom-woman-taxi-(not so much lover…all the time and as much as I would like) my emotional roller coaster ride is hectic but nothing, I repeat nothing has prepared me for this monster sky-diving episode. I am still waiting for the parachute to open up.
One moment the eldest is hugging me profoundly to declare his undying love and the next moment I cannot even say hi to him in front of his friends. My brain tells me this is all normal and I can very vaguely remember through the grey fog of something called my memory, how I acted as a tween girl (I was a total nightmare), but my heart is grieving for my little boy who is happy to get cuddles, hugs and kisses from his mom. I am excited too and do not want to hold them back at all, but this independence thing is all so scary. More so for me as for them. There is so many new things like cyber bullying to take into consideration these days. Not to talk about the pressures of body image and friendships in general.
And what is it with the sleeping patterns? Weekends they wake up at very unfriendly hours and want to play on the X-Box, Wii, Ipod, Computer, Tablet and my nerves. But come school days, then they cannot get out of bed. And my once-so-neat two little boys are turning into the two little piggies. I think I might just ask my darling husband to build them shelves under their beds, seeing that that is the favourite place for clothes to end up at the moment.
I wish I could build an automatic washing machine in there too…..
Written by School Mum Adri Van Rensburg
