Harry Potter Built a Bridge

To be Short, Sweet to the Point:

The 15 yo and I are carving out our relationship...
nevermind that she's the 5th child--
the 5th teenager I've lived through.--
that counts for barely nothing in her book.
She sees all of that as irrelevant
because
she. is. different.

We're going round and round lately
on the same pivots:
school, seminary, home.
I'm predictable.
And I like being predictable.
My yahoos know me pretty good--
and heaven knows,
I want them to.

I don't have any fresh ideas or strategies
I'm just burning to try out--
keep it simple
is my motto.
Well, not really,
I didn't make that up--
some other guy did,
but I like it.

But here's the deal,
the 15 yo wants me to change things up--
she wants to be the exception to every rule
because, you know,
she. is. different.

Unhunh.

She hadn't done her "part"
this past week,
and then was invited over to a friend's house
to hang out on the spur of the moment
last night.
I wanted to say "yes"--
and I even told her so.
This is the hard part about being a parent,
I told her.
I know you really want to go.
I know this is important to you.
And I really really want to just say yes.
BUT
You didn't do your part this past week.
Or even today,
when I asked you to do two very specific things--
you blew them off
until I got on you about it,
and even then, at this moment,
you haven't done one of the things.
And here it is,
6:45 at night.

So what's the right thing to do here?

She huffed and puffed about--
stating her case, as it were,
before me and her Dad,
trying to convince us that
WE were the ones in error..
and it all ended when she finally did the one thing
I'd asked her to do several hours before
(mop the kitchen floor--which took her all of 5 minutes)--
and then sulked down to her room.

I hate this.
I'm too old for this, ya know?

After taking a minute to reflect,
I went down to her room--
finding her with the music blaring,
and her in bed curled up with a book.

(How do they read or even think with that noise on?)

She sat up,
and we talked...
and talked and talked.
And nothing was getting resolved.
Everything I said was met with,
"No. That's not it." from her.
And a "Hold on a sec and listen to what I'm saying." from me.

It was going nowhere.

So I called in reinforcements:
my oldest dd, Dani--
I told her briefly what's going on,
and she agreed to call sometime today.

Then I called my oldest, ds, David Scott--
who wasn't answering his phone.
I figured he was probably out on a date with his wife.
Possibly seeing "Harry Potter".

So with my reinforcements unavailable,
I wondered what could I do to make things better
right then.

So I sat and got a wild hair--
after confiding in Mr. W,
I got online
and quickly bought 3 tickets on Fandango
to see the next showing of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"
for me, Nana and Daisie.
I scooted down stairs and whispered the plan in Nana's ears--
"Don't tell Daisie we're going, just tell her to get a coat and shoes on."
I went and got some decent clothes on,
brushed my hair, grabbed some shoes and my coat.

Daisie had no idea where we were going
and of course kept asking--
just when we were at the car door in the driveway,
I said,
"We're going to go talk to the Bishop about this and see what he says."

(ain't I a stinker?)

Her response was priceless--
"WHAT? No! No! I'm not going!"
Nana: "Get in the car, dork."

She did but wasn't happy about it.

Then we acted like I took a wrong turn,
and ended up at the theater.

She was surprised, as I'd hoped.
I turned to her and said,
"This is me, making an effort to spend time with you."

Of course, hugs were all around.
The movie was super intense--
and as we came back to the house at nearly midnight,
I thought,
that ol' Harry Potter does alot of good,
he's a good friend to Hermione and Ron,
he's kind to Dobbie,
he's all about fighting the evil he-whom-shall-not-be-named,
and he helped build a bridge between me and my teenager.

That's one good guy right there.