Way to go, Andie!

Wow. Did the author of this sentence have Andie in the forefront of his/her mind when he/she wrote this? Because I tell you what, that describes her to a tee. Well, with the exception of the “aggressiveness” part.

Unfortunately for Andie, my depression six years ago sort of kicked her need for control into overdrive and it has shown no signs of abating. When I was so down that I could barely get myself out of bed, it was Andie who took over. Being the temporary mom fed her desire to run the show, a role that she has been fighting me for since she was able to talk.

While my illness soothed her desire to control everything in her environment, it also put her into a role that she neither needed nor understood at that young an age. She was the perfect candidate for the job and she did it admirably, especially for only being five years old, but I feel horribly guilty for putting that burden on her shoulders.

Even now, years later, I often overhear Andie slip into “Mom mode” when she thinks I’m not listening, but because she is so impatient and feeling that “unrealistic sense of urgency,” she is not only bossy, but mean in her desperation to get her siblings to do what she wants. This happens most often when we’re getting ready to go somewhere and are on a deadline. She cannot resist making sure everyone, including me, is getting ready and barking orders at Rachel and the boys. “Did you brush your hair yet? Go brush it! Boys, get in the bathroom and brush your teeth!”

I want to help Andie learn to relax and enjoy the small things, especially because I think my sickness helped push her over the edge. The tendencies that she had before my depression are no longer just tendencies and have manifested themselves as habits now. Sometimes I have to talk to her quite seriously to get her to back down in her now self-appointed role as mother’s helper. Giving up control and just being a kid is extremely difficult for Andie, especially now that she’s had the experience of being thrust into the partial role of parent. Even though that was long ago, it stayed with her, a part of the fabric that has woven her into the person she is today.

Andie is an unusual girl. Her weaknesses are also her strengths. I am incredibly blessed to have her as a daughter. She is strong, confident, thoughtful, kind, sensitive to others, helpful and loving. She cleans the house without my asking, takes care of her brothers without complaint, steps up to help whenever I need her to, practices her flute and piano without ever having to be reminded, does her homework with absolutely no prodding. She even tells me what a great mom I am, though I know that my Type-B ways drive her mad sometimes.

Though my depression may have strengthened some less-desirable characteristics in her, it also made her undeniably stronger. The trick now is to help her find a balance between taking too much weight, stress and responsibility on herself and meeting her need to control some aspects of her life.

Wish me luck.

The other day my daughter informed me that a boy in her second-grade class said she is “hot.” Excuse me?!?! Did I actually just hear this?

Although my jaw pretty much dropped as far as it could go after hearing this proclamation, I attempted to compose myself quickly, hoping to disguise my shock. “And what does that mean?” I asked nonchalantly.

“It means that he thinks she’s pretty and he wants to marry her,” my other daughter said.

Hot? Really? Perhaps I am turning into an old fuddy-duddy (though I prefer to think of it as delightfully old-fashioned), but the thought of some 8-year-old boy telling my innocent, sweet little girl that she’s “hot” is nauseating. She’s a little girl, for pete’s sake! To me, “hot” describes the chicks in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, Patrick Dempsey, or the way I take my coffee, but certainly not a 7-year-old girl who wears her hair in pigtails and still sleeps with her Care Bear.

I assume that this boy is merely repeating a word he has heard everywhere, which for a child usually has the connotation of “pretty,” as my daughter explained. But isn’t it a bit sad that kids this young just casually throw the word around as if it’s as ordinary as “hello” or the supremely more innocent “cute?” “Hot” just sounds so much like, I don’t know, “I want to have my way with you.” Yikes. I have to think about the boy thing already?

To be fair, I probably deserve everything I get in the boy department. I certainly put my parents through plenty in my own childhood, flirting with every male I saw starting from a ridiculously early age. Infatuation was my state of life. I guess I can be thankful that neither of my daughters is like that.

Yet.