Margarita Mama

The Terrible Tweens

Clara's always been an early bloomer. I don't really know the official age when the tweens begin, but she's SO there. She took all her winnings from her solo and duet at dance competition this year (when she places first she gets about $50 or $75, which is hysterical when I think about how much I spend on dance) and she bought herself a pink IPod Nano.

She kind of wiped herself out financially, but instead of letting her learn her lesson and wait until a birthday or until she earns some more money, Miguel took Clara to the store today and bought her an ITunes gift card. (way to go Dad). Because, you know, there weren't enough cd's in the house for her to go through.

After her first session, she had downloaded 5 songs. Unfortunately, Rodrigo helped her and the session was not supervised by me. So she ended up with a couple of Hannah Montanna (Disney Channel) songs and then you know that song Glamorous? "No". Oh and Also. Fergalicious?

K, because I've been to a billion dance competitions I happen to be aware of that lovely tune. So I said, "Is that song appropriate for you?" This is where Rodrigo pipes in and says, "Don't worry Mom, we downloaded the CLEAN version."  (Duh, mom, it's ok to listen to skanky hip hop music if they substitute "mother-father" for "mother-fucker". I did hear that once. But it wasn't a Fergie song. I don't even know if she uses that term. But that's not the point.) So I said to Clara, "You are 8, and you shouldn't be listening to music that has a clean version." And she said, "But Mom, she's Emily's favorite singer and she's like a month younger than me."

Seriously, I don't know if I'm going to make it through all this. I just gave her a book about periods, and now she's listening to music that's probably played in every strip club in America.

They Grow up so Fast

Clara had her first "chick flick" experience tonight. First came the surreptitious sniffles. Then the tear-wiping disguised as pulling hair out of her face. By the time the Nicole Kidman died in Ewan McGregor's arms, she had burrowed half of her body under mine on the sofa, and was watching the movie from somewhere behind me, in an effort to stop herself from all out sobbing.

I fully expect a nasty comment from Hilarie telling me how much she hated that movie, Moulin Rouge. And let me say in response: I am not above calling a hugely pregnant woman a Bi-atch.

Also, in this day and age of DVD's one can watch PG-13 movies with a couple scenes of inappropriate sexual content with children and simply skip the inappropriate chapters. This works only if you love the movie and have already seen it a few times yourself. Last year when we watched De-Lovely, (another of Hilarie's favorites), we simply skipped the few chapters about gay sex (since they have yet to figure out what any kind of sex is) and it was a lovely movie. And I have to say, it was almost exactly a year ago, and there I was sobbing at the end and both kids were looking at me like I was nuts. Now a year later, Clara's still coming up to me and hugging me hours later, even though we've proven to her the Nicole Kidman is alive and well somewhere in L.A. or Australia.

Can't wait to see how she handles King Kong.