Are We There Yet?

My baby went out of town last week for the first time without me, and you better believe I was upset and worried. It doesn’t matter that my baby is fourteen and needs to learn how to take care of herself. It also doesn’t matter that in four ridiculously short years, she will be going away to college, and I better get used it. Right now, she is fourteen, and she is my baby, and she has not spent more than a night or two away from home, and any of those few and far between nights away from home were always less than a two hour drive. This time, she went to the mecca of children the whole world over, Disney World, and she did it via chartered bus, and each way of the drive was a good eight to ten hours. There was no hopping in the car to come to her rescue, had it come to that.

My baby does have a good head on her shoulders, but no matter how good that head is, it is still fourteen and doesn’t fire from all cylinders. Logic is not a big part of the fourteen year old’s decision making process, but mood and feeling is. And if all moods and feelings are influenced by budding ovaries more so than rational brain function, well, I think you see what I am getting at here. This is a child who can’t be counted on to pack what the majority of us would call a lunch, let alone select an appropriate outfit or remember that shoes are required when going to a place of business.

Allow me to illustrate:

Last weekend before her trip, she decided she wanted to do her homework outside on a blanket and enjoy the lovely spring day. Not five minutes later, she stripped down to her bra and underwear in the back yard, because she decided she would work on her tan at the same time she studied. Never mind that a bra and undies are not the same as a bathing suit, nor that she would never let any of us see her in said bra and panties if she were inside the house, nor that it is the back yard for Christ’s sake, nor the fact that in my family, we do not “work on tans,” seeing as my father died from skin cancer when I was just a few years older than she is now.

I worry because I see how her decision making skills are sort of off-kilter during this adolescent time. My husband, who is a man and therefore doesn’t usually understand the point of worrying, actually agreed with me and got in the on the parenting act as well. Before she left, we took turns reminding her of stranger danger and discussing the value of a dollar before handing her a little less than two hundred dollars.

Whoever planned this school trip neglected to include the cost of meals, but it seems a little irresponsible to me to expect teenagers to manage money for four days. I don’t know what you people with teenaged boys would do in a similar situation, but I guess you would probably worry that you didn’t give your son enough money, seeing as how they can eat their own weight in food every day. Teenage girls, on the other hand, don’t like for anyone to know they have body functions, especially eating. My husband and I both worried that our child would not eat, and therefore not poop, for the four days she was away from our vigilant care.

So we had the “talk.” About how much food costs at Disney. About how three meals and two snacks are not unheard of. About how drinking water is essential in Florida, especially if you ever want to crap again. For her part, our teen did a fair amount of eye rolling and complaining and insisting that we gave her too much money. We explained to her that she has no idea how much food costs since she never pays for her own meals. Also, she doesn’t have a credit card to fall back on. What was in her hand had to last for the whole trip, but that didn’t mean not to eat for fear of running out of money. Seriously, these were our main points. It’s kind of hard to have a rational conversation with someone who thought fifty bucks would be plenty. I bet we both sounded like every adult in a Charlie Brown show to her. Wah wah wah wah wah.

She left on a Wednesday night, midnight to be exact, for an all-night bus ride, to arrive in the morning at Epcot, where they would brush teeth and change clothes in a rest stop. In my yoga class, around the same time she was eating a Nutrigrain bar and wondering where she put her retainer, I cried because the teacher played two of my daughter’s favorite songs in a row. The next day, while volunteering, I received a text, a picture of a chicken and waffle sandwich from the Magic Kingdom. I silently was thankful she ate. By the following day, she was solidly in a routine, and I only heard from her when she was clearly devoid of all food based energy and thus bitching wildly about anything and everything. That’s how I knew she was okay.

She got home last Sunday night. Her hair was lighter from all that Florida sunshine. She  hugged me and handed my husband a wad of cash. We gave her one hundred and sixty dollars for food for four days. She came home with ninety-five. She spent sixty five dollars. Then she showed us the shirt she bought herself at the mall when they stopped for lunch on the way home. It was thirty bucks.

 At least she ate a sandwich one day. The rest of the time she survived off frozen lemonade. She wouldn’t even eat the free breakfast at the hotel because it was too nasty. This child of mine isn’t spoiled at all.

For four days, I got used to not having her around, and she got a taste of freedom that was enough for her to hold my hand for a good hour after she got home. We both know she isn’t ready to be on her own, no matter how cool it sounds to grow up and move out. I also understand what it’s going to be like when she does come back to me. I will have to learn to be happy to see her and hold my anger and judgment at whatever choices she makes with which I don’t agree, especially if I want her to come back.

Parenthood is always a dance, and you are the last one to learn the steps. Also, one can’t survive on less than ten dollars a day at Disney. I don’t care what she says.