My oldest is seventeen. Often, I hear people lamenting about how awful the teenage years are, how tense the mother-daughter relationship can become, how their daughters cause them no end of angst, stress, and grief. I know I did nothing to merit this, but my daughter is a rarity: she fills my days with laughter and knowing her and watching her grow into the thoughtful person she’s becoming is a gift. The fact that I get to be her mother is proof that I’ve been given far more than my fair share of grace. Allyson is a gem.
She’s pretty funny, too:
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“Wit beyond measure is a man’s greatest treasure.” -J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
While watching a movie, a woman suddenly appears wearing a track suit. Allyson sighs, “Oh, a track suit. That’s never good.”
She is re-reading the Harry Potter series and is on The Order of the Phoenix. Sitting down with the gigantic hardback in her hands, she says, “I like books that are big and can be used to hurt people.” Absentmindedly, she bangs the book down onto her lap. “Ow!”
I ask her if she wants a grilled ham-and-cheese for lunch. She shakes her head with an astonishing violence. “No! Do you remember that sandwich you made me when I was eight with the ham and cheese? That’s a Bad Memory. Now I am wary of any meat with built-in cheese.”
I convinced her to watch Downton Abbey. She’s reluctantly admits that it’s fantastic, and she loves it, though it’s stretching her emotional limits: “Mom,” she wailed, a bit teary-eyed, “This stupid show is ruining my life!”
Ally got an adorable haircut, and we were talking about how cute it looked on her. She told me it looked best straight; curly or blow-dried, not so much, going so far as to say that even her dad laughed at her when he saw her blown-out locks. I scoffed. She replied, “You haven’t seen this hair when it’s blow-dried. I look like…YOU! From the eighties!“
We were looking at shirts at Old Navy, and Allyson informed me, “By the way, I hate cream-colored shirts. They look like white shirts that just got dirty over a long period of time.”
Typing a Facebook status, Ally scrolls through the new “feeling…” options, and shaking her head, she says in an exasperated voice, “Feeling ‘normal’? Goodness gracious…”
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“Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” -Franz Kafka
Storming into the family room after watching “Sherlock“: “I am suffering from an overdose of feels!”
A summertime grievance: “I hate that I had to put on actual pants today.”
When Allyson returned from teen camp, she was grateful for The Little Things: “I have a new appreciation for doors. There were no doors on anything in our dorm except the entry door. I love doors. Doors are awesome.”
On my clothes: “Mom, if you’re gonna wear shorts, you need to get a smaller size. These are too loose. You look like a mom.”
“I am a mom.”
“Yeah, I know you are. But you’re not supposed to *look* like one!”
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“What you do, the way you think, makes you beautiful.” -Scott Westerfield, Uglies