And the Saga Continues

Well, the cell phone freak out is certainly not over. She is handling this so poorly. We have probably spent 4-5 hours on this issue. And no, I'm not engaging every time, but sometimes she'll sit and glare at me for long periods of time. She just can't get past it and every time she shows up to try to get her way and doesn't, she goes back to defiance. Some of the lines she used in her arguments were classic. When I refused to engage she would say, "Yeah, that's what I thought, Fatty." When she tried to get in over her head by pulling out some concept she didn't understand her response, "I know what it means, but I don’t have to tell, but I do know what it means." And of course, the classic, "You're not my mother. It doesn't even say so on my birth certificate."

So we continue. She has already started her path of defiance this morning. But the nice thing is that she does have a pretty soft heart and eventually she will break. She already did once, but then toughened back up. She is stubborn though so it may take a while.

I said something to her yesterday though that sums up my experience with lots of my kids. She was saying she would never allow me to be her mother again .. that I had lost a daughter over taking away her cell phone. I was attempting to make two main points yesterday: "You have three older siblings who have done the same thing to me at one point or another. But you can't take away the years you were my daughter and all the good times we've had. They live in my head and in my heart."

And secondly, I said to her again and again: You can't take away the fact that you are my daughter. I choose that. I claim you as mine forever. I suppose you can choose not to let me be your mom anytime you want to, but you'll never stop being my daughter. That's my choice.

And so we move forward around the Teen Attachment Cycle day by day, kid by kid. Even into adulthood as Bart is seeing with our oldest son, Kyle.

But whereas their emotions change and cycle, ours can remain firm. We claimed them. They are ours.