my child

The thought of raising a child still terrifies me. With good reason - my child is truly the kind wished for in the late 1800s, when children were viewed as "small adults" who made their decisions, held conversations and generally were seen as good company.

Summer is a hot blooded time for both of us - she adores and gains freedom and I search for but cannot get my hands on freedom. Of course, I'm taking that college course so that has taken my sectioned time for freedom/play/personal enjoyment - much like my sleeping again has taken my time from writing.

Still, Delhi's been hanging at my mother's way too much. I still remember my mother's "Oh God" when I told her, sometime in March, that Delhi would be born June 15 or 18 or 21. I had had a dream of the calendar and my circling a day. She wasn't boohooing my dream - my mother was just freaked because, in her words, "She'll be a gemini! My parents were both geminis!". She said further: "Well, I was under them but this one will be under me!" The evening I had Delhi my mother made one soapy, googly look and I told her "under you, huh?"

We still talk about Delhi's immense personality and how she is like the threat of a huge thunderstorm when she approaches with something on her mind.

So lately, she's been pushing, with all her logic, how upset she is with the summer camp she's attending part-time. I have her at another summer camp between 1 and 2 times a week but can't afford to do it all week right now. By August she'll be going every day anyhow because this free summer camp she finds "just awful" ends in July. I was so fed up with her rationale and her consistent pecking at either me or my mother about just how awful the summer camp was I showed her our budget for the month. This worked for a couple of days.

Then I amended the budget to show just her expenses. We were both surprised that she manages to swindle me out of more than half my check. Her immediate face indicated she thought that perhaps she was deserving of more. My face, on the other hand, must have shown my disgust at having paid her basically $100 an hour for work she may have done around the house (and not with the greatest output either!). So this kept her quiet for another few days.

Next I told her about my cracked tooth and it was either two days of summer camp more for her or me repairing a tooth that was bothering me and that could crack on me. She didn't immediately agree with the urgency.

Finally, yesterday, I reminded her that I needed glasses and those would be about $250 and if I had to hear, even once more about how she didn't like the free camp, she wouldn't be going to the cool camp that costs money at all for July because that was costing me $260 for the month. Well, my mother came to pick her up this morning for the free camp and the first thing out of her mouth to my mother was about how mean I was.

Kills me that I taught her, from the beginning that she needed to use her mouth to enact change. Kills me more that she seems to have received the stubborness on both sides of the family.