Traveling With a Teenager

For six days now (not that anyone's counting), Annie's been acting like a teenager with PMS. She spends 90% of her time pouting, whining, or crying about the most minute details of her life and has actually stomped to her room and slammed the door, teenage-style, several times. (Perhaps she's listening to some Tori Amos in there, maybe reading some Sylvia Plath . . . I don't know.) No matter what food I set down in front of her, unless it is PB&J, she nearly cries. Last night she was whimpering while eating an apple and I launched into the "Starving Children in Africa" lecture. Her response? "You're talking mean to me and that makes me sad." Today after dance, I had to run an errand to Art of the Table. Afterwards, we went next door to Wealthy Street Bakery, where I let the girls each choose a treat and thought we'd have a fun, lunch-ruining snack together. Annie chose a cinnamon roll, then spent the next 15 minutes whining that she "didn't like the frosting" and "wanted something else" and asking "When can we go home?" And when we are home, she spends all her time tormenting Jemma, lecturing me on the specific hair clip she needs (complete with finger-pointing and phrases like, "For the LAST time, I'm telling you . . . ), and changing her clothes over and over, refusing to pick up the ones she's discarded.

I had been looking forward to our Florida trip so much these past few days and weeks of freakishly cold weather. I've had visions of all of us playing in the pool, finding shells on the beach, lazing around eating whatever we want, whenever we feel like it. I thought that having both sets of grandparents along would be perfect: six adults + two children = lots of time for Jason and Stephanie to enjoy their kids while other people cook and clean up. I thought we'd be able to snatch an hour or two here and there to read a magazine in peace or run on the beach while Grandma or Grandpa entertained. I thought we'd all have fun together, grilling dinner and splashing around and building sandcastles.

These past six days, a small current of fear has begun to wind through that river of excitment. What if, instead of a fun group of eight, we become a captive audience for Annie's dramatics? Meals ruined, time-outs enforced, happiness strained while I try to turn her around and all four grandparents secretly think that what she really needs is a good, hard spanking.

I got a suitcase out, just one, and I'm trying to pack a little each day. Whenever something occurs to me, I throw it in there, wily-nily, and plan to separate everything into appropriate suitcases later. Yesterday afternoon, the girls took turns wheeling the suitcase up and down the hallway, pretending to sit on the airplane, Annie instructing never-flown-before Jemma on how it will be. I want to ask, how will it be, Annie? Are you going to try to ruin it for everyone? Sometimes I feel sorry for her, that at four years old she can even be so unhappy, so tormented by her daily life. I worry that she is depressed or sick or . . . something. Sometimes, I can laugh about it with Jason or on the phone with friends and believe that it's a phase that will pass. But now, after six days of almost non-stop drama, I mostly feel mad that she's turning the tenor of our house towards unhappiness. I'm not ready for this, yet, for her to be a teenager with all the emotional baggage that comes along. I want my happy, sunny, spunky four-year-old back, please.