Creeping Up On the Teens

My two children are 15 months apart. They seem to growing a very rapid rate though. It seems like just yesterday they were babies. Today it's a whole other story.
Yesterday Chase and I went to Target so he could get Valentines cards for his class and a special box of chocolate for his girlfriend. Yes, his girlfriend. One night Saige showed me that his little girlfriend had made her "status" on AIM (I don't even know what this means) "Chase is my life A+C <<<<<<<33333.
So that's nice. Not.

And then we have Saige. Saige is twelve. I guess moodiness comes with the territory but some weeks are worse than others. Most times I just try to keep my head down low and implement the "NO EYECONTACT" rule that I learned years ago from a friends mother that let us go to NYC alone for the day. That rule might just have kept us alive.  I find it works well with preteens too. The only problem is sometimes these girls won't let up on you no matter how hard you try to camouflage yourselves into your surroundings.
For instance, last week Saige called me on the phone, "Mom, I left my sneakers in my locker. I need them for dance or I will get in trouble. Can you call Nancy and see if Emily has a pair I can borrow?"
"You can call Nancy," I say.
"I don't want to. I want you to," she whines at me.
"Yeah well, the thing is, I didn't leave my sneakers in the locker. You did. Therefore, you call."
This goes back and forth for quite a while. She just won't let up on me. Now she has it in her head that I should call because I am the Mom. I'm feeling like she should figure it out. After she had been on me for about an hour I say, "Listen to me, you have four choices, you can call Nancy, you can wear my sneakers, you can go to dance and get in trouble or don't go to dance at all. No matter what you choose I am not calling Nancy."
So she called.
She rang across the street in a huff, she came home in a bigger huff because she didn't like the sneakers they had loaned her. She stomped up the stairs muttering to herself some nonsense. In as cheery voice as I could muster out I said, "Okay honey, I'm getting in the car, it's time to go." Stomp, slam, stomp, stomp was all I heard.
I got in the car and waited and suddenly she appeared all smiles. "Look!" she said, "I didn't leave my sneakers at school, they were in my room after all."

Kids are fun. Little angels. Love 'em so much.