Talking Like a Teenager

After a truly wonderful day yesterday, Annie had a really hard time today. She began the day crying in bed for her Daddy for 20 minutes after he left for work, and she ended the day crying in bed for her Mommy. In between, there was also a lot of general whining, crying, and time-outs punctuated by a few brief bursts of normal behavior. At breakfast, for example, she was adorable and very happy with her oatmeal, string cheese, and raspberries. (She eats a ton for breakfast!) After she finished that, she told me she was still hungry.

"What else do you want?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Whatever, Mom." Is she 13?

And tonight when Jason came home, he asked her how her day had been. She stood there in the kitchen, all serious, and said, "Well, Mommy just asked me to take my dance clothes off and change into regular clothes to play outside and I TOTALLY FREAKED OUT." So, yes, she apparently is 13 years old now.

Her behavior was truly so difficult today that I told her, around 11:30, that she'd be in time-out in her room while I made lunch and then she'd be eating lunch by herself in her bedroom. I can't tell if she found this to be a punishment or more of a novelty, but she was pretty pathetic sitting at her little pink desk, eating her turkey sandwich and applesauce all alone.

Besides trying to switch Annie back into the "nice" mode, we spent today trying to keep cool by finger painting outside and splashing around at Meijer Gardens this afternoon. Jemma kept launching the little plastic boats over a waterfall into one of the pools and saying "thank you" to the boat when it would float back to her.

Tomorrow: more heat, humidity, and sunshine. And I am NOT complaining! So glad it's fully, entirely summer!