raising teenage girls

All posts tagged raising teenage girls

When Homeschooling Gets The Best Of You!

Published March 23, 2015 by Angela

I am about to tap the mat, and concede. I have been beaten. How does a 13 year old get the best of me?

I am going to eat up 5 vacation days through my employers so I can take my daughter to her MStep testing. I get to sit around the local hotel while she does her testing. For 5 days.

Why is it that she can sleep until 11am, when I already have 5 hours in at work, and still get her requirements done?

Can we homeschool work?

Getting Schooled By My Homeschooler

Published January 13, 2015 by Angela

What do you say when you have a full time job, 6am -3 pm, and get home to find your homeschooler doing, well, nothing? Here is how my day went when I got home from work….

Homeschooler:  “I woke up late. Yelled at my 10 year old sister, who goes to public school but is home sick, for not waking me up.” “Oh, but then, I had to take a shower and get dressed because of my dentist appointment today.” “Oh, and I did not want to start something that I would not be able to finish.”

Really? REALLY?

Why she is under the impression (the wrong impression, I might add) that she is off the hook for the day is beyond me. I had to go out of my way after work to get her Algebra study guides sent to the school, or risk her losing 20% of her grade.

Trust me, she does not have 20% to give away.

And before you give me all hell and high water, I spend 5-6 hours every night (every. single. night.) going over her homework with her. I do not leave her hanging to do this on her own. She has a direct number to my office at work, that no one answers but me. Any questions? Call me, I can help you out.

But when you have a 13 year old who is literally bigger than you in size and strength, and refuses to go to school, what do you do?

She promises she is going to go to public high school next year when she enters 9th grade; I am praying daily for this.

Parenthood and Other Horror Stories 2014 in review !

Published December 30, 2014 by Angela

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,500 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 25 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Who Exactly Do You Think That Attitude Is Punishing?

Published December 4, 2014 by Angela

I surely hope you aren’t doing it for my benefit. You can have an attitude for as long as you like; it is certainly not going to encourage me to let you play a game on the laptop or my phone. Not when you cannot stay on task with your homeschooling assessments.

I am physically exhausted from working 9 hours a day, and then spending 5-6 hours every night helping her sort through her assignments. Especially when she does not want to focus, or pay attention, or even make an effort to pretend she is listening.

So once again, she will not have access to the laptop until I get home from work. She obviously can’t get her work done on the laptop while I am away at work, so I will just eliminate that distraction all together. If I have to spend 6 hours every night teaching algebra and science, I will make sure I have her full attention.

Nothing gets a 13 year old girl’s attention faster than taking away all of her abilities to contact any friends, play any games, or shop for clothes on Amazon.

All I know is 1) my parents would have dragged my ass to school and made sure I stayed there, and 2) if I ever tried to pull any of the crap that she tries to pull, I would not be here today to type this blog post!

So here’s to being the bad-mean-horrible-bitch-mom for at least 4 to 5 days, until she realizes she cannot break me 🙂 It sucks that I have to go through this, but unfortunately, this is exactly what it takes to get her to see I am not kidding, and then she gets back on task.

I Guessed That Spot On – I Am Ready To Go Back To Work!

Published November 26, 2014 by Angela

Stressed Mom 1I will honestly say that I woke up this morning angry at the world. I am tired, and all of my girls were up before I even opened my bedroom door to come downstairs. Normally I am lucky enough to get an hour or two of alone time before they start making their way downstairs. Why they insist on fighting like cats-and-dogs is beyond me, but I have had enough of it; and no, it is not even noon 😦

Stressed Mom 2So, after I spend what is likely to be hours at our local Secretary of State office so my 16 year old can get her license, there is one of two things that is going to happen. Either they are all going to bed until their attitudes change, or I am going to bed until their attitudes change. Because yeah, if they change their attitudes, I might not feel like such a bitch today.

Just being honest; I really see no point of lying on a blog. What would be the point of the blog if I did? On the up side, the only thing I need to do in preparation for Thanksgiving dinner is cook some rolls 🙂

I promise tomorrow I will be thankful for the blessings in my life. Today is not a national holiday, so I am opting to use my freedom of expression and let the bitch in me be free!

As a note, I have never, am not currently, and will never be the Mom that can stay home with her children. I love them with every fiber in my being, but my girls and I all realized that there is such as thing as too much togetherness for us.

As Thanksgiving Nears…

Published November 23, 2014 by Angela

…I could not even begin to list all of the things in my life that I am thankful for!

Yes; I complain about my girls on here. All the time. Hence the name, Parenthood and Other Horror Stories 🙂

But, no matter how much they push me to my limits, I would not trade one second of it. Each of my girls has brought me joy beyond compare in their own individual ways. I have been blessed being able to watch them as they grow into responsible, smart, beautiful young women and girls.

I am fortunate to have a job that allows me to provide for my girls and keep a nice home with food and all the comforts that can be so easy to take advantage of when it is just there for you every day. I may complain some days about having to go to work, but I can also guarantee you, that with a full 7 days off yet for Thanksgiving, I will be more than ready to go back to work the beginning of December!

I am grateful that even though I have chronic health conditions that can never be cured, they can be managed and I can live a normal life in spite of them. So many times I want to complain about the Doctor visits, and the cost of insurance, but without it, things would be so much worse. Being able to take my daughter to the emergency room for an asthma attack without giving it a second thought it not something that everyone is able to do. So many do not have healthcare of any sort, and each visit has to be planned and saved for ahead of time.

(No, I am not making this a political post about the state of our Country, our healthcare system, welfare, etc. So please do not do so either.)

I am thankful for my faith, that has gotten me through things I could never have dealt with on my own. Knowing that no matter what else happens in my life, I will always have my faith to rely on, and get me through the tough times, gives me the strength I need to try new things, and push myself into situations I may not be 100% comfortable with. No matter what I may say or do, there will always be One who loves me in spite of all of it.

I hope you have many, many things to be thankful for as well, as we begin the week coming up to Thanksgiving!

And So It Begins In West Michigan…

Published November 17, 2014 by Angela

…a Winter season that is looking to be as bad as everyone predicted, which is even worse than last year. It is currently 6:15pm here, on November 17th, and there are 104 closings for evening events that were scheduled. I think the school closings will start coming in by about 10 pm.

Another thing that I get out of the Winter season is numerous Doctor, Med-center, and Emergency room visits. Case in point: a 5:00 am trip to the ER this morning with my 16 year old. She has asthma, and as soon as the temperature gets to a certain degree outside, she is pretty much miserable for the entire Winter season. I spent $55.00 on an OTC nebulizer at the pharmacy yesterday which seemed to help, momentarily. Her other inhalers were not doing the trick. But this morning by the time I got out of the shower and dressed for work, she asked to go to the emergency room. I know better than to second guess or question her when she asks, because she will suffer in silence until she can absolutely not deal with it any longer.

And that other lovely side effect of bad Michigan Winters is lots of snow days for my girls. Which means lots of phone calls at work for me, because they cannot get along. Sometimes they do spectacular together, other days, they really all just need to be in separate rooms.

And the worst side effect is that I get seasonal depression. Which is much worse than my regular depression I deal with on a daily basis. As soon as the time changed and it started getting dark at 5:30 pm, I have been short of patience. I have plenty of books on my reading list, and my best defense against this very real seasonal depression is laying in my comfortable bed with my cat, reading great stories.

How do you handle the Winter weather if you are in a snowy state?