If people tell you it will get easier don't believe them!

I am sitting here tonight well actually this morning as I write this post. I am wishing that I could get the whole picture scanning thing down so I could have posted pictures of how adorable Tiffany was when she was a baby, toddler and a child. Those are pictures that are burned into my mind. It is almost like it was yesterday in a way. Have you ever seen the commercial where the little girl asks her Dad to borrow the car keys because she wants to go to the movies? Now the little girl is probably all of about 8 years old in the commercial. The Dad gives her the third degree asking all about who will be going and then she stands there with this angel face and says "please" he then hands her the cars keys and a picture of a teenage girl is right in front of you. Well it is really like that in life sometimes. You picture your kids as always being little kids. Wham! Bam! Then reality jumps up and smacks you in the face. Well not much more than a year ago my oldest Tiffany was 18 years old and a freshman in college. The most important thing to her was watching her beloved Boston Red Sox play baseball. She was pretty annoying about the whole thing. I am an Oakland A's fan and it is just not right that my own child could be anything other than as A's fan but she is. Well flash forward several months and all of a sudden like a bolt of lightning from the sky she began to change. I noticed small changes at first. It started with her feeling like she didn't nned to follow our rules any longer. She had turned 19 and she felt she was entitled to stay out later and do more things. Well we were OK with that to a point. She then began to make more outwardly noticeable changes like really caring about her appearence. You know nothing out of the ordinary for a young lady. She basically put aside the ball cap if she was going out and took more time with her hair and makeup. Still nothing bad just different for her. Well flsh forward to December and she totaly changed her look. It was her hair, her clothes, her make up everything. Still not really a bad thing just different for her. Her attitude also took a nose dive. She is working at a job and sometimes ,especially during the holidays she would work until 1:00 am or even later. Well when she did that it was understandable. Her job is less thatn 2 miles from our home and we were fine with her driving home from work at that hour. She then decided for herself that it was perfectly OK to go and ' hang out" with her friends and her boyfriend after work or sometimes on her days off and come home whenever. We tried to talk to her many times about this but have been told we are being ridiculious about the whole thing. She is rebelling now,telling us she is moving out in a few months and going to live at the dorms. When we ask her about why she would like to do this she says because she doesn't want to follow our rules. Wow! This from my beautiful little girl. I must say that our rules are not difficult. We ask that she keep her bedroom and bathroom cleaned, that when she is home she load the dishwasher and that she needs to take out the garbage daily. Oh yes and we ask that she not keep late hours. We mean you know please don't stay out until after 1:00 am. Well we are unreasonable! I guess there is alot of stuff that happens after 1:00 am or something. In addition to this she has now gone through another change.

She has decided that she is also interested in attending this fashio school in the city. We have nothing against that but boy to hear her talk she has been creating and sewing for many years. Oh wait there was that one time in Girl Scouts when she did sew that dunk bag. Now please understand I am not putting her down for wanting to try this out. It just came out of left field. SHe has now even another new hair do. She can't leave the house without over powering the rest of us with her very strong perfume either. It is so bad we can't be downstairs it is that over powering.

Well last night she worked and came home with her boyfriend. My husband and I were upstairs and commented on the fact that they were off earlier than normal. Well they weren't even home 5 minutes and they left. Chris watched them get in her truck and leave the opposite direction of her job. He was annoyed like where do they have to be going at 11:00 at night. Well we had a hard time getting back to sleep. It was 2:04 am and we heard the truck pull back into the driveway. We didn't say anything and decided to wait until this morning to talk to her about it. Well she gave us some made up story we know for a fact isn't true. We again told her no more late hours. So today she went to work. Before going she mentioned that her boyfriend might come over after work and they would watch a movie. Well I woke up at 12:30 and she wasn't home yet. I couldn't go back to sleep,and time went on. I started this post at about 1:40 am and she still wasn't home. My mind was part angry and part worried. I couldn't possible go back to sleep with her not being home. There are so many things that can happen to people out there at this time of night. It scares me. It terrifies me actually.

I can remember going through normal things with her as a baby, toddler and a young child. People always tell you things will get better as they age. Well I am here to tell you that is not the case. Things don't get better. Well maybe for them but definitely not for you. They get to go through life living here at the Resort Mahnke and not have a care in the world. Now the staff at the resort AKA me have to clean up after them because they don't do their chores and I can't leave everything undone. I get to cook for them and their friends too. That is always a joy. You know another thing that happens here at the resort is that I never get a day off. I never get to just relax in my own space or do what I need to do because you never know when visitors are going to pop in. The main thing was tonight though was that once I realized she wasn't home yet I couldn't go back to sleep. I was worried. I then had the worry shifted to anger. I feel so sad and disrespected right now. I don't know when or if I will be able to go to sleep again tonight or this morning.

So to all of you that have young children this is what I say to you. Enjoy them now. Keep them close to you. Give them plenty of love and understanding. Disipline them when needed and DO NOT feel guilty for it. We did all of the above. Our kids have turned out to be nice girls which is good. In spite of all of that though you will find out that it doesn't get better as the grow,it does get worse and the worry that comes along with that will leave you with a big yucky feeling in the pit of your stomach. Good luck to you though. Keep your head raised high and know deep inside that no matter what you love your kids and are doing what is best for them,even if they don't realize it at the time. My daughter will know soon enough that we only want what is best for her and that we do know what we are talking about. Well at least that is my hope. It is now after 2:00am and I am wide awake. I hope you all are having pleasant dreams!