Do You Really Know Your Kids? Because I’m Clueless.

Just when you try to pigeonhole your kids, they change.

This is Bridget (7):

If tortured on a bed of red-hot nails I might encapsulate her as: as an outgoing, chatty, Girly Girl who’s hard to get to know because she keeps real intimacy at bay with her Fancy Nancy persona. It’s all small talk and silliness.

Bridget and I do Mommy/Daughter dates at a cheap nail salon on Pico, each of us in our own little spa chair. She chats up her spa lady while I catch up on which nanny might be stealing Brad from Angie.

So, when I decided to plant an herb garden in the backyard I expected my “tomboy” Clare to be gung-ho for the job, but it was Bridget who eventually came outside and watched me whacking and hacking at the ground covered in mud and worms.

At first she didn’t want to get dirty or wormy. But finally she offered to help.

We sat in the muck for two hours breaking up dirt clods, manhandling spiders, rolling up pill bugs and planting basil, sage, tomatoes and some other stuff I’m not sure what it is but it’s purple. And these are the things I learned about my daughter that I didn’t know:

  • She has a friend who yells at her, but it doesn’t scare her. She’s determined her friend just has trouble “processing her emotions.” So she doesn’t take the outbursts personally, she just waits them out.
  • She thinks everybody’s stressed out about something whether you’re a kid or an adult. Which is why you should enjoy being in “the stage of life” you’re in now. Because there will always be something to worry about and there will always be something that’s fun.
  • She much prefers digging in the dirt with me than going to the nail salon because “this way we can really talk.” She informed me planting the garden was her favorite Mommy/Daughter Date.

As my friend Tango 5/6 might say, “Don’t concretize your kids.” (BTW “Concretize” is not a word Tango – I LOOKED IT UP!)

Now Bridget’s pigeonholed as Burbling Waters That Run Deep. Until she changes again.

Here’s our garden:

And here’s my girl (Man, I’m in trouble) …

For more KID WRANGLING you might enjoy:  

Do you really know your kids – what have they told you that was a surprise?

9 thoughts on “Do You Really Know Your Kids? Because I’m Clueless.”

  1. Your garden looks beautiful, but I think the “little garden of girls” you are growing is the MOST wonderful of all!

  2. Lucky you, I cannot drag either of my kids to my garden with me and it’s one of my favorite things to do.
    My daughter used to be my shadow. Now she’s 14 going on 24. She mostly only talks to me about “things” if we’re driving somewhere. And I never know who she’s going to be from one day to the next. Except for this: she doesn’t give a rat’s ass what other people think of her. She has always been her own person, since she was about three. Hurray!

    Your daughters take after their mommy, BEAUTIFUL!

    1. Hi Sadie — 14! You are in no man’s land. The teens scare me and I know they’re just around the corner. I’ll have to up my Cymbalta. And than you for the compliment about my girls. They get away with murder just because of those freckles. BTW this is Shannon — I register as Angie bc that’s who built my site. sigh.

    1. Shannon Colleary

      She’s just buttering me up so I’ll buy her a backhoe. They’re always two steps ahead, the little bastards!

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