Rainy Sunday

Well, it's just a rainy Sunday around here, and sometimes it feels like it's raining inside our house as well. Ruby is sick on the couch -- nothing too major, just a cold with a rough cough. She's slathered in Vapo-Rub and we're keeping her inside today. In fact, she's still in her pajamas and will probably stay that way.

And Lin is being, well, a teenager. She went to Sunday School this morning and ever since, she's just been kind of in a rotten mood. The girl just has days where she wants to "pick" at people, push our buttons. Most often the target seems to be me, but fortunately these days are fewer and farther between, and I like to think I'm getting better at dealing with them.

How do I deal with her? I ignore her. She's a teenager. She's hormonal. As long as she doesn't get too disrespectful I just let it roll off my back.

For example, the whole way home from Sunday School she questioned me about God. "Why do you believe? I don't believe. I don't want to learn." which then turned into "You don't love me. I don't love you. I don't love Dad." A year ago I would have cried and tried to reassure her, tried to figure out exactly what's going on, is she thinking about China, about her birth family... ??

Now? Yeah, not so much. She's a teenager. She likes to pick on me. She'll get over it.

Do I sound heartless? Maybe a little. I don't really mean to. I just mean that over the last year I'm confident that we've developed a loving relationship, so if she tells me she doesn't love me I know she's not serious. She's just trying to get a reaction from me. And I've come a long way in learning how NOT to react.

Yep, I'm the mom of an ornery teenager.

UPDATE:

After struggling through homework with an even more ornery teenager, during which I actually walked away from the table because she was not listening to me, I decided I needed some Me-Time and I headed out to the store for some odds-and-ends. I came home to find this:

Yep, even when she's ornery, I've still got a pretty great kid!