The Katie Chronicles, Focus on the Positive Edition

Parenting a middle school child is giving me a run for my money. Basically, I’ve hunkered down and am just trying to make it through the year. OK, I’m being a little dramatic. The issues this year are, as far as I know, pretty much on par with Katie’s developmental stage, so no drugs or porn addiction or knocking over liquor stores on the way home from school or anything. That’s for 7th grade.

There are, however, frequent sparks of light and even entire sunny days. She’s still a snuggle bug, and she does things occasionally that just make my heart sing. A few days ago, without being told, she *actually found a coaster* before she put down her drink on my new coffee table. Y’ALL. Wow. Apparently the 8,865 times I’ve shouted “use a coaster!” from the kitchen have sunk in. Then yesterday we were watching a news story about that Houston principal who created a dress code for parents. We talked about what challenges she might be experiencing and Katie concluded (without any prompts from me) that she disagreed with the code because “you don’t know the parents’ situation. They might not be able to afford more than what they have on or they might be sick that day.” Be still my heart. She’s getting what we are trying to teach her, at least a little bit. That’ll get me through a bad grade on an open book test any day.