Perfectly Princess

Princess will be 20 in January. She’s reached that fidgety, restless period in life in which living at home is no longer tolerable (the parents keep breathing dammit!). She frequently plots and plans her escape – transfer colleges and live in the dorm, or get an apartment with friends- seem to be the prevailing themes. In the meantime, she spends two or three nights in the city at her sister’s apartment. Most of my kids reached this period right after High School graduation. She’s the baby, and stuck around because she doesn’t like to suffer, or work too hard, or be alone or be forced to pay her own internt bill.

She will tell you she’s stayed at home because she needed to take care of her parents (parents who haven’t yet reached their 50th birthdays…positively doddering), or her mother would be lonely (mother… that would be me, when exactly do I have time to be lonely?). Pap and I just shake our heads and let the Princess live her own reality. When she’s ready, she will go.

I’ll miss her when she moves out. There are certain routines around here that Pap just hasn’t caught on to, but Princess has refined to a fine art. For instance, “the wake me up in the morning” routine: The daughter will frequently say to me “if you’re awake at 7:00, be sure to get me up.” What that means: at 7:00 I turn on her light and say “It’s 7:00”. If she rolls to the left, that means she heard me. If she groans and flings her right hand into the headboard, that means “I’m sleeping another hour”, so I come back at 8:00. If she pulls the blanket over her head that is the clear signal that I’m to toddle off on my own business and she’ll get up when her alarm goes off. The routine is simple, but Pap just doesn’t get it. He follows behind me and says “did you hear your mother? It’s 7:00” and then complains because she bites his head off.

Princess knows if I put Nickelback on the CD player, we’re picking up the house, and she just does it. If I’m actually washing a dish, she knows to dry it and put it away. If we borrow each others cars, we replace the gas. No talking is required during these routines. Poor Pap, just doesn’t get it.

I won’t miss that, despite my best efforts, one is never in danger of knowing what kind of mood the little lady is in. If she’s mad about work or school, Pap and I are the dogs she kicks. If she’s happy, everybody better be happy. I won’t miss the pile of shoes on the stairs, the pile of jeans in the laundry room or the mountain of books, papers and other college clutter that gathers by the corner of the couch where she sits. I won’t miss her evil cat or the way she clutters up my computer with junk.