How to Ensure that Your Child Will Never Talk to You About Anything, Ever, Part I

Well, we've finally gotten there. Earlier than expected, I have to say. But we've reached the point where my little daughter, the more beautiful, weirder, slightly more mercurial version of me but with a much better butt, has begun to separate herself from me.

It's been happening in little ways. She doesn't need me to do her hair in the morning. She spends more time with headphones on. But still, it's the beginning of something more.

This should make me happy. This should be the shit. Because ever since that gorgeous little monkey ambled out of my body nine years ago, some part of her, I think, has always kind of been trying to figure out a way to get back in.

That is to say, we're close. Partly it's because I wore her in a backpack well beyond the point when her legs were perfectly formed and in good working order. And breast fed her considerably longer than 'Make other moms at the park uncomfortable' age. Probably it's also because her dad and I split when she was three and we starred in the Mommy-Lily show for years and years (sometimes a lighthearted sitcom, like "Friends";  sometimes more frightening,  like "American Horror Story" or "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo". )

Regardless of the reasons, Lily and I are a unit. And I love it. But she's zooming toward the newly identified demographic of 'Tween' (Thanks, Mary Kate and Ashley) faster than you can say "Justice gift card".  She thinks Santa is bullshit. She wants to text people. She thinks Ke$ha is pretty. I'm not ready.

Which explains, I guess, why I do really dumb things. Like a couple weeks ago, I happened upon a journal. And I did the unthinkable.

Yup. I read it. Disgusted, aren't you? I know. It goes against every touchy-feely, crunchy-hippie-mom attachment parenting instinct I have. And yet. And yet. There it was.

It's okay, I told myself. You're only peeking in to make sure everything's going okay with her. Just getting a birds eye view of her life. Find out, perhaps, a teensy bit more than the usual 'Uh huh's and 'Fine's I get in the ride home from school lately.

Well, part of me wishes I hadn't. A really REALLY big part of me wishes that. But another part of me, the bitchy, worry-prone, See-I-Told-You-So part, felt totally, disappointingly justified. Because as I read the most recent entry, besides having to squelch the urge to break out a red pen and correct her totally shitty spelling, my knees started buckling and my whole midsection felt like it turned to liquid heat. I nearly burst into tears as I read the words (edited, of course):

DEAR DIARY, I AM SO EXCITED BECAUSE THE BOY I HAVE A CRUSH ON FINALLY ASKED ME TO BE HIS GIRLFRIEND!!!!