Mom's Morning Out

If you have a teenager, when was the last time you spent a full day alone with it? I had that misfortune last week when my daughter had three doctor’s appointments, and let me tell you, I don’t plan on doing that again anytime soon. My daughter, E, is now thirteen, only she thinks she’s sixteen. While she still occasionally wants a hug or to have a conversation with me, she has decided that she knows everything and therefore doesn’t have to listen to her parents or teachers anymore.

Since there is nothing left to learn, she finds the world a pretty boring place, especially the part of the world in which she spends most of her time. Her family is boring, her school is boring, her friends are boring, there’s nothing to do, nowhere to go, blah blah blah. I can’t even understand half her complaints because she has taken to mumbling full time. If I don’t respond to what I can’t hear, then she adds sighing and eye rolling. Three year old tantrums are starting to be a reminder of the good old days, when I could at least pick up my child and cart them off to another room for a time out.

 We started the morning at the orthodontist’s office. E has been wearing orthodontia of some form since she was eight. She’s had four rounds of expanders and has been in braces for over two years now. You would think she’d be pretty eager to get them off, but sadly, no.

It all comes down to rubber bands. Every six weeks we go to the orthodontist, and he gives her a couple of packs of rubber bands which she is supposed to hook in various versions of cat’s cradle inside her mouth. She is to wear them at all times except during meals. She chooses not to.

Instead, she hides her bags of rubber bands in my car or in my purse.  Which means that the braces she should have had removed over a year ago are still hanging out on her teeth. I didn’t realize she could have been train track free for that long because she has forbidden me from joining her for her orthodontist exams, since I talk too much and therefore embarrass her. I wanted to ask her doctor specifically what she needed to do to get those braces off. He said, as politely as he could, that if she would just wear the rubber bands, she would be finished with the braces.

When we got in the car, I said to her, “You want your lecture now or later?”

She said, “I’ll take it now,” and proceeded to lecture me about why she still has her braces on, about how it’s not her fault and she forgets and they hurt and they shouldn’t make that much difference anyway and who cares if her teeth are straight.

“Wait a minute,” I said, “it doesn’t work like this. I am going to lecture you, not the other way around. You are the one who has to sit there and listen.”

I went off on what a waste of everyone’s time it was to continue to go to these appointments if she wasn’t going to do what she was supposed to do. I made her find every package of rubber bands and hold them in her hands to illustrate how many days she has been noncompliant with her treatment. I pointed out that she must really like braces since the only reason she still wears them is because of her. And I raised my voice some, because the more I talked, the better it felt to say everything louder.

 

 

That is a pile of rubber bands, not rubbers.

 

We went home. She stormed upstairs to her room, and I stayed downstairs and took out my frustration on Facebook.

Next it was time to go to the pediatrician. She refuses to see any doctor except the one she has gone to since she was a baby. He now practices on the other side of town, so I indulged her by driving twenty five minutes to get to his new office. She was measured and weighed and had her hearing checked, which, shockingly, was completely normal.  Then the doctor came in the exam room and attempted interaction. He has a thirteen year old daughter as well, so he knows a little about the breed.

He did the usual stuff and then reviewed her growth over the past year. She declared herself fatter than her friends, which is infuriating. She wears a size three jeans, and she is 5’7”. Plus, every afternoon when she gets home from school, she raids the pantry of all its chocolate. Seriously, even the chocolate chips I buy for cookies are half gone, the bag wide open, I might add, just like the pantry doors, which is how I can tell she had been looting. Anyway, she isn’t fat, which the doctor told her in a professional and tactful manner. She interrupted him several times to argue about why she thinks she’s a porker, including bringing up her 80 pound friend who is severely underweight as an example of normal. He ended every sentence with, “What do I know; I’m just a doctor.”

The same thing happened during their argument over the effectiveness of ibuprofen on menstrual cramps. The teen mumbled. The doctor patiently explained how ibuprofen works. Then the teen argued about it some more, with mumbles, until the pediatrician said a variation of his other line, “Well, if I were a doctor, I might know what I am talking about.” Clearly she feels comfortable with him, at least enough to treat him like an idiot, much like she does with her father and me.

Then we drove home again. On the way, she had to tell me when to switch lanes on the interstate, as if she knew what she was talking about. I ignored her and told her what options we had for lunch. Bagels, soup, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter, veggie burgers. She rejected everything and went for a giant bowl of Fruity Pebbles when we got home. Those don't make you fat at all.

After lunch, it was time to go to the dermatologist. I told her I would stay in the waiting room, but this time she insisted I go back with her. She seemed to have lost her will to fight, perhaps because she was sleepy, so she just mumbled at him but kept the arguing to a minimum. He asked her if she had any concerns, and she said no, so I reminded her she was worried about some new moles that had appeared on her youthful milky white skin. He examined them and told her they were looked normal. She glared at me for speaking.

After that appointment, I didn’t drive home. I drove to school.

“Where are we going now?” she mumbled at me.

“School,” I said. “The day’s not over yet.”

“Why can’t I just stay home? I’ve missed most of the day anyway,” she said to me.

“It’s not yet sixth period,” I answered. “If I drive faster, I can get you there in time.”

She mumbled at me and turned to face the passenger window to let me know she was mad at me, again.

The day was all about her, but she didn’t see it that way. She didn’t want to be at school, but she didn’t want to be home. She didn’t want to go to the doctors’ offices. She didn’t want to go back alone, but she didn’t want me there either. She didn’t want to hear what any of her doctors had to say, and she didn’t want to do what she was told to. She doesn’t know what she wants. She wants to be treated like an adult but wants to act like a kid.

No wonder she is tired all the time. That shit is exhausting.