I sing You Are My Sunshine to my daughter every night before bed. It has become a tradition for us, ever since she was a little baby. I actually think her father sings it to her, although I don’t know if he still sings it to her, I should ask her about that. She is my sunshine, she is who showed me to grow the heck up a bit and she is who taught me being a mom is the most rewarding job ever, of course now her two brothers teach me the same along with the fact that boys … from a young age develop a love for farting but that’s another story altogether!

Have you heard the You Are My Sunshine song before? Do you or did you have a song you sing/sung to your kids while they were young?

This is not my child in this video, but it was sooo cute I had to embed it!

My daughter is going to be nine years old in October, the same month in which I turn 30. My daughter has been going all hormonal on me. I get it, I get all hormonal once a month about one week before my period and it’s a time when I can’t stand being near myself let alone dealing with a child who has no clue what this is all about.

I decided that since my daughter is showing signs of being hormonal I would show her what pads are and take a moment to share with her what the lovely nonfriend of the month brings. The problem? She doesn’t want to hear a thing about it, but who can blame her, I mean this is serious business and gross at the same time for a little girl.

I am one of those parents who knows my children are listening even if they are grossed out or appear to not hear you. My child is listening to me and she is aware of what she has coming ahead. Hopefully she is 12, the same age I was when I had my period, but I have no clue because the hormones are raging and I catch her looking at boys a bit more than she ever did before. Please don’t let her be boy crazy is all I can think to myself.

We have discussed how I feel about boys and dating and all of that because apparently in her grade girls have “boyfriends” , well my daughter won’t be having a boyfriend any day soon. Sure she can do the whole immature in school I have a boyfriend thing where they don’t do a thing with them it’s some odd immature I have a boyfriend no I don’t stage. I had that stage but it was much later in life, or was it? We won’t go there, because I am not sure.

Either way, all I get from my father for advice is “Good luck girl I am rooting for ya”, and after all what can he say? He has two daughters, he has been here before and he probably still deals with the raging hormones from his two daughters often, but Dad deals well. I don’t deal well…. but I will find the secret to dealing with this hormonal stage of my daughter … I WILL.

I love my daughter to pieces but seriously once she hit age 6 I started thinking “what on Earth happened to my precious little baby girl.” I think someone decided that it would be super funny if once my daughter hit age 6 that they exchanged her personality for one that closely fit mine at her age. Although, I swear I didn’t act the way she does at such a young age.

I recall not having an interest in boys and I also recall loving spending time with my Dad‘s side of the family and my grandparents as well as my aunt and uncle on my Mom‘s side of the family. I do not recall being snobby and rude to my loved ones at age 6 through age almost 9. My attitude seemed to have started around age 13.

Some days I have to ground my daughter by taking things away from her, such as her cell phone which really is only suppose to be used for contact with her Dad, but she is addicted to playing Tetris on it therefore it has become an extra privilege that quickly gets taken away upon bad behavior. My daughter loses her extra weekend movie nights in her room and sometimes she is sent to bed at the same time as her brothers if she hasn’t been listening well or has given a negative attitude all day long.

I am beginning to wonder if age 9 should be the new tween. I predict that tweens start getting hormonal, start liking boys or at least showing some interest in them, they start liking all the iCarly and Victorious type shows and yes now a days they even seem to love Justin Beiber or however you spell his name.

I wasn’t prepared for my daughter to become what I thought a tween was so close to age 9. I really had thought hoped that I had a few more years before all of this hormonal inbalance attitude would start.

I am now thinking that age 9 should be considered a tween because if it is not defined as that well then, I don’t know what to define my daughter as other than unique, independent, stubborn, carefree and beautiful.

Full Disclosure: I love my daughter dearly, but seriously this new found her is starting to get a little weird for me. Clearly I don’t want my daughter “defined” by anything other than who she is but seriously, I do think age 9 is the new tween for 2011.

I have a new love in my life, yes I am cheating on Justin for one week out of the month with my new love ….

Yes it is true, I am in love with Midol for four days every month, and this month? I ran out with little money to spare for the little pills that keep this girl on a positive mood. I swear I wish men could deal with a period at least two times in their life so they can stop telling me “you’ve had your period how long now? Shouldn’t you be able to have found a way to deal with it by NOW”? Yes that was said to me by my daughter’s father while I was having a slightly bitchy moment before soccer practice one day.

Gotta love that we get along so well, NOT. So here it is my confession.. I am in love with Midol and ever since I started using it I have refused to stop using it. I am addicted to Midol, it keeps this positive girl on a positive roll oh yeah and stops those damn cramps from attacking me all day long!

This month it has been a test, a test that I will pass, but next month I am making sure we get this Mama some Midol Maximum Strength Menstrual Complete Caplets, preferably a six month supply!

I sometimes wonder if people have no clue what breasts are. For me they came on strong at a young age, please say my daughter doesn’t have to deal with that, and then later became a feeding necessity for my three children. I am uncertain where my breasts came from because they were always rather large for my size and now I feel very top heavy. I like to wear certain clothing, v-neck shirts are my favorite but with a chest the size of mine I get accused of flaunting my stuff. Mind you, I am far from trying to flaunt these bad boys, I am forever trying to hide them.

As you can see in the picture above they don’t look all that bad. The key to me making them look slightly smaller? I wear too small of bras, yup, and it kills me. My back hurts always, my shoulders slouch forward. These babies are heavy. The problem with large breasts is that I swear men and woman have to stare at them whether you have a little cleavage showing or hiding them under a t-shirt … the breasts are still there and boy do they get a lot of attention.

I love my breasts, if I had a bra that actually supported them and could find a local dealer who sold affordable size 38e bras then I would totally not worry about a reduction but alas I can’t find local stores that sell bras that big and so I am going to work my butt off trying to find a way to get a breast reduction so I can be 36C or even 38C would make me happy! So I wonder, what is it that makes people stare at my chest no matter what I wear for a shirt? Is it because they are so gigantic? I have seen larger …. And do you have this problem?

It occurred to me yesterday that we allow my almost 8 year old daughter to have a say in almost every thing that comes into her life. She has a choice as to when she wants to visit, call or text her father. My daughter has a choice on whether or not she wants to do an extra curricular activity, she has a say in her clothes shopping for school. Pretty much the girl has had it really easy because she has always been pretty respectful and mature for her age. Yesterday, rather over the weekend, while she was at her Dad’s house it dawned on me …. Miss Ki gets to make decisions most almost 8 year old don’t have a say in. The girl has a say in almost everything we do as a family because Justin and I feel that a family makes decisions together. Mind you, we allow our children to have a say, as in share their opinion, but we, the adults, make the final decision.

This is where it gets a bit cloudy for my daughter because she is the type of child who shares her opinion and expects us to go with what she feels we should do. Not anymore, she has had a say and still will continue to have a say but it’s time I stand up and be the adult around here with her. Miss Ki has been able to do a lot of extra curricular activities and this year it seems they are going to overlap causing quite a stressful situation for her. I made a parental decision to pull her from one of her normal activities she did last year, we loved doing it together but over the Summer and even during the start of this school year I have noticed something with my daughter; her self esteem is down, her anger is up and she isn’t the spunky little girl I always known and raised her to be.

Miss Ki still has her soccer, after all her father is the coach and I feel I can’t make a decision on that without talking with him. Soccer is only a seasonal sport and not a full year thing that she is doing so much better at after playing since Kindergarten. Soccer is something she can play no matter where we move as she plays for a rec center and non-residents can play with just an extra non-resident fee. Which means should we move out of this town we live in, she and her father can continue doing their “soccer thing” no matter what.

I have been questioning myself and making myself  feel like I am making a mean decision to pull her from all other activities until further notice. I didn’t just do it on a whim, I actually sat down and spoke with my daughter expressing my concerns with her self esteem, her mood changes and how she seems to be unhappy about some things in her life. I told her I feel like her and I should work on building her self esteem back up and getting her emotionally okay as well as focusing on school. Miss Ki does great in school, however, we haven’t had a parent/teacher conference as of yet so I don’t know if her emotional behavior is playing out in school at any level yet.

What I do know is that my daughter is easily put to tears, easily throwing something and raising her voice at a whim to her family. In our house, we are a family and we do not speak to each other in such a tone, we take time outs and then come back to discuss any issues together as a family, yes my chidlren have a say, they have the right to speak up and tell me or their father/step father if we are doing something they feel is not okay, hurting their feelings or what have you. We are the type of parents our children can say something to us, in a respectful, polite way if they feel unhappy with a decision we made or with how we handled a situation.

No matter how much we let our children have a say in our family routine, the end result is that Justin and I are the adults and we are taking back some of our “adult rights” one of which includes the decision to pull children from activities should their emotional well being need to be worked on. Counseling services is next … because if I watch my little girl fall apart and do nothing to stop it, I fear for the worse! I feel like no one interfered when I was younger to get me counseling or anything and my teen life went spiraling downhill along with my grades. One thing I refuse to do, is let my daughter follow in my foot steps of low self esteem as a child, I will do everything in my power to build that girl right back up so she knows that she is the best and most loved little girl in the world.

My daughter says to me the other day “well Mama I would love for us to talk but I do want a counselor because after all, your expertise is not in that area”. Now do you all see what I am dealing with? An advanced, big word speaking, too big for her britches, almost 8 year old! Need I say more?!