The Mother's Day Blues

I have gotten lots of cards and emails and text messages wishing me a happy Mother's Day.
It doesn't feel like a happy Mother's Day.
I think my days of "happy, carefree, mild-mannered Bean" are over. Way over.

She wanted to "stay home" this weekend - which I thought was really cool... but she didn't actually stay home. She spent Friday night with my mom telling her that I "didn't hear" her and that she wished I would do something besides sleep. For the record, I have not been sleeping as much as I did before Barlteby died. I have been awake and making dinner in the evenings. We have been busy most nights - between knitting night and our grief group and dinner with friends. We have been talking and laughing and watching TV together. She wanted to see a movie this weekend and I just couldn't afford it, so Saturday we went to lunch at her favorite BBQ place and then to Twist for knitting. She even got to go to a carnival that was going on near Twist with her friend M while I knitted. She asked me to take her to the carnival but with the broken foot I had to say no. She didn't say anything, but her attitude shifted a little.
I was glad that M was around and wanting to go too.

When they got back she didn't knit, she just sprawled out in a chair with her eyes closed, barely able to contain the extent of her boredom. I sort of wanted to smack her.

Then she decided to go with her sisters and spend the rest of the weekend with her dad.
I made dinner and Sally came over and we knitted and talked about men and cats and healing.

Bean and I talked about it a little bit. My mom asked her if it was OK to share her feelings with me. She said it was fine, but that I wouldn't listen. She said she wished I would ask her to come with me when I did fun things with my friends. It's sort of difficult to manage that when she is not home on the weekends! We had decided to see a second run movie this afternoon before she decided to go with her sisters... double standard anyone? If I had cancelled the movie to go somewhere without her she would have had a nuclear meltdown.

What bothers me is that she thinks I don't "hear" her. That she thinks I am ignoring her, when I have tried very hard through this whole thing to make sure that she knew I was OK and here for her.

I know that part of it is the age... She's 11 (going on 15) and I am losing IQ points every day. How could I ever possible know what it's like to be an awkward, hormonal teenage girl? I knew that hatching fully grown from that egg was going to cause problems sooner or later.

And she has been through a lot lately... but I feel like I am failing her. She is supposed to know that I love her and that I am hearing her when she talks to me. I am supposed to be providing her with a safe, comfortable home life so that when things happen or when she needs me she knows I am here.

She feels left out a lot... at school and with her sisters, and I know that the end of the school year is really weighing on her this year. She has been at the same school with more or less the same kids since kindergarten and now she's facing the end of that comfort zone, and a new school and new kids. That's not easy.

On the other hand, I also don't want to feel like I have to step to attention and comply just because she is bored. She is not a spoiled child, but it feels like there is quite a bit more attitude now when she doesn't get her way. I don't respond well to attitude. And I am allowed to make plans without her. I am allowed to enjoy my time alone.

I have to figure out how to balance her needs with my needs with reality... and I have no idea how to do it. I am off balance on the best of days, and her hot and cold crap is not helping. You'd think she was a Scorpio!