Sweet Baby Jesus

I cannot believe this.  Sweet Baby Jesus, save me.

I know I use Jesus in most of my rants.  I can’t even tell if I am actually asking for help from the Lord, or if it breaks the tension.  Today, I need the help.  My teenage daughter may indeed give me apoplexy.  (Honestly, I don’t know what that means.  It’s definitely a tension breaker, though.)

OK, my ADHD mind has successfully diffused the tension, so why don’t I take another look at the scene unfolding before my eyes. 

There is the unmistakable smell of soured milk.  It washes over me like the putrid morning breath of my toddler who insists on having pudding right before bed.  It’s a teenager’s room.  Need I say more?  The smell is why I no longer clean her room, do her laundry, or cross the thresh hold of her room without holding my nose and gagging.  When do they lose the ability to monitor their own smell? 

There is a lump in the middle of the bed that keeps jerking up and down.  If this were a teenage boy, I would have a horrified guess as to what was going on.  But this is my sweet baby girl.  She had contraband in there. 

She definitely had contraband in there.  I knew it.  Two days earlier, she had lost access to all technology.  No phone (my husband cracked it in half), no iPod, no computer, no television.  She was, in fact, channeling her inner Laura Ingalls.  And boy was she ticked about it!  You would have thought that we had pulled all her fingernails out.  She was PRETTY dramatic about the whole thing.  I am ashamed to admit that I found a deep sense of joy about the punishment.  Well, maybe not that ashamed.  Perhaps a tiny bit of indigestion. 

Syd is much like every other girl her age.  Mousy brown hair, with prerequisite “side-bangs”.  Skinny jeans and hoodie is always her uniform of choice.  Her eyeliner is  perpetually an inch below her lower lid.   The piece de resistance, for me, would have to be the ever-present, disgusted look on her face.  It’s always there.  Sometimes I think she just must be thinking hard.  Then I ask her to tell me about her day to which she snorts, grunts, groans, whatever.   

I try to be sensitive, I truly do. There are mornings that I have to pretend that a PBS film crew is following me around filming the life of a saintly mother parenting a teenage girl with ADHD.  In this documentary, it is up to me to model how to appropriately parent a child with organizational and attention issues.   This morning I am not succeeding in the role-playing.  It is 6:00 am I am just not brimming with patience. 

“SYDNEY! For the love of all that is holy!  Do you have your iPod?  Because I told you that you were to -under no circumstances- use it, or even possess it.  YOU are grounded.  Because YOU LIED!”

“Um, Mom.  I needed it to do my homework.”

Seriously, just kill me now.  In case you were wondering, this was another lie.  This would be a lie, to cover up the lie, that was cov.....oh you get it.

“You told me that you lost your iPod.  You have been looking for it since the moment I told you that you were not to use it.  Have you lied to me, yet again?”

“Mom, I just found it.”

My mind started racing.  When did you find it?  Did you sleep walk?  I’m getting confused.  Is this what you are trying to do?  If you push me into the throes of insanity, do you win?  Are we playing a game?    

“I was going to give it to you.  I promise.”

“Liar, liar pants on fire.”  I sang it to her.  It was the only thing I could think of. 

My husband was now standing in the hallway watching me behave worse than my 13 year old.  I could see that my daughter inherited her look of disgust from this man.  He was looking at me and calmly stated, “I need coffee.” 

Sweet Baby Jesus.