Monday, December 3, 2018

Sass

As girls, we deal with a lot of gross things. It’s just the nature of being female. Yay! Who rules the world?

Dudes, as we all know. But we’re working on that right?

Anyway.

Last week was period week in our house. Yuck for everyone involved.

I ask Alyssa each month if she will help Olivia with her pad each afternoon since I don’t get home until 5ish and its decidedly gross by then. And by ‘help’ I mean, she can just supervise. Tell Liv if the pad needs changed, make sure Olivia actually changes it, ensure the new pad is placed correctly and that the old one (so gross!) is disposed of properly.

When I got home last Wednesday, I went to work making cheese cake and rice krispy treats for Thanksgiving dinner at my mom’s the next day. I realized at about 6:30 that evening that I hadn’t helped Olivia check her pad.

I asked her if she’d changed it when she got home at 1:30 that afternoon.

She announced that she hadn’t.

I looked at Alyssa, who’d had N over for the afternoon.

Tom called from his spot in front of the computer to say that he’d asked Olivia about it earlier in the day and he was positive that Lyss was in hearing range when he’d asked.

Sigh.

I called Olivia to the bathroom and we took care of business. The entire time, I shot looks of disappointment at Alyssa.

When we were done, Alyssa declared, “You know, she’s not my sole focus in life!”

Oh. Oh no. She did NOT just say that.

I may have seen red at that point.

I told her in hushed but intense tones, “I have never asked you to make her your sole focus! I ask you, a couple of times a month, to help her with this one thing. It would have taken you less than a minute to go into that bathroom with her today.”

To Alyssa’s credit, she got it. She may have teared up.

I couldn’t let it go, though. I reminded Alyssa, “I know you think we baby her. I get that. But she is NOT normal. Don’t you think I would give anything if she were? Don’t you think I’d fix her if I could? I wish, with all my heart, that she were a typical twelve year old who could change her own damn pad without assistance.”

I stopped there because I was getting upset and I didn’t want Olivia to hear me. I love Olivia and I accept her challenges. I would change them in a heartbeat for her but I can’t and so when I’m not there, I need a little help.

I admit to being peeved by Lyss’s comment for several days after.

I told Tom, “She has no idea how good she has it. If we both worked outside the home, she’d have it so much harder.”

And I am glad she doesn’t have a hard life. I wouldn’t want her to have to work harder around the house or take more care of her sister.

But…I kind of wish she had a little more appreciation for the life we’ve given her. I do realize how ridiculous that is. She’s a teenager, they’re notoriously self-centered. They can’t help it. They’re brains are still developing and that’s a good thing. And honestly, she’s one of those really great teenagers.

I worried so much about Alyssa when Olivia was born. And that was before we even knew that Olivia had special needs. A little sister changes the older sibling’s life. A little sister with special needs changes it even more. I worried desperately that she’d be negatively impacted by Olivia’s needs.

I still have guilt over Olivia’s first Christmas because of how it affected Alyssa.

I’m so grateful that Tom and I have been able to provide a home in which Alyssa has always been able to just be a kid. She hasn’t had to do a lot for Olivia. Sure, when I’m in line at the grocery store, I will ask her to go to the restroom with Liv if she announces she has to pee. But that’s about it. She’s never been asked to baby sit, she’s never had to clean up after Olivia. She doesn’t have to make meals or wipe butts.

So I don’t feel like having to look at her sister’s pad two or three days each month and make sure she (the sister) takes out a used one and puts a clean one in correctly is asking too much. Hell, it might even build character.

For what it’s worth, I’m over the whole sassiness of it all. This isn’t a vent or my attempt to make Lyss feel bad. We’ve settled it and we’re good. This is just storytelling, an attempt to keep track of life itself as it continues on a fast pace day after day after day. I want to remember these moments when we both got a little testy because these are the moments memories are made of, good and bad. And this isn’t even a bad memory, just one of thousands that I hope someday we can look back on and laugh about.

It’s actually kind of nice to see my straight A, over-achieving teenager be human, a little self-centered and self-focused. It’s okay. It’s good. We’re good and she’s more than good. She’s amazing, even when she’s sassy.

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