Early Onset Teenage Attitude

My 9-year-old daughter is on the cusp of tweenagerhood. She still likes princesses and Tinkerbell and still cuddles with a stuffed bunny at night. But she also loves everything Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers…well basically any of those tween shows on the Disney Channel.

However, her twin brother isn’t teetering on the edge of being a tween. He’s trying to skip right over it and move on in to the teenage years. I blame his older brothers (our teens). He worships the ground the teens walk on and wants to do every single thing they do. (And they, in turn, pick on him because that’s what teens do to younger siblings…until I have to threaten to put them in time out like when they were youngin’s.)

Today I asked my 9-year-old son to hold my camera so I could take off my jacket (because it was hot standing in the ridiculously long line to get signatures from the characters from Bolt). A couple years ago we were in Chicago and I let him take pictures with my old point and shoot. He ended up dropping that camera on the ground. Right on the lens. And it broke. (To be fair his not-yet-a-teen brother was trying to grab the camera out of his hand at the time.) In any event, I was none to pleased. So today I reminded him to be careful and not drop my camera.

He looked at me with a look of disgust and said, “I wouldn’t drop your camera.”

“Umm…remember what happened to my last camera? When we were in Chicago?” I reminded him.

“Mom,” he said with all the attitude he could muster, “I’m NINE now. I’m much older.”

Oh the teenage attitude starts at such an early age nowadays.