Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Mortification at the Hands of The Cheerleader

I love my "tween" daughter, otherwise known as The Cheerleader. She is energetic and fun... she is also nosey (she calls it being curious) and wildly inappropriate.


I woke her up yesterday to get ready for school, then went back downstairs to get myself ready enough to stand at the garage door and wait for her bus to arrive (the preparation is minimal at best). After completing this daunting task, I open my bedroom door to find her standing RIGHT OUTSIDE the bedroom door (note that there is nothing else there... just our bedroom door... not even a hall, so there was no reason for her to be standing there). And she says, "Mom, what were you DOING in there?"


Now, how do you answer a question like that? I told her I was getting dressed and brushing my teeth. She says "Yeah, right. I HEARD stuff." Gasp!! I know for a fact that the only thing she could have heard was me and Mr. Fix-It talking while we were both in the bathroom. So, I told her that what happens in my bedroom is none of her business and left it at that.


That afternoon, she and her little friends come bounding into the house to play Rock Band and as they are settling in to play, she says (in front of her friends), "Really, Mom, what were you doing in your bedroom this morning?" Argh! I had to control myself, because I really wanted to grab her by the ear and yank her upstairs for a gripe-out, but instead I said, "Julie, this is not the right time to talk about this." I was furious - I was just sure that these little girls would run home to their mom (who is allegedly friends with The Dark One - Mr. Fix-It's exwife) and tell a convoluded version of the conversation. You know, like, Julie's parents were "doing it" on the kitchen island... that kind of thing.


After the girls went home, I sat down with The Cheerleader and asked her to tell me what privacy is. She told me, and she was right. I told her that if a door is shut in our house and she needs something, that she needs to knock. If she doesn't need anything, she cannot stand by the door and be nosey. I asked her if she had any questions, because next time there would be no discussion, just action. She says, "But I thought I heard... nevermind."


I am really struggling with this... I don't want it to be a conversation about sex because, well, it isn't really about that. It's about privacy and respecting other people's space. I NEVER would have said any of these things to my mother... I mean, ew.

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