Welcome to eye-rolls and ice cream! One mother & daughter's take on love, life, & middle school

So much is talked and written about how difficult the tween and teenage years are, particularly for girls. When Ryan was born, I remember people telling us that his toddler would be tougher, but to hold on, because Anna would give us way more grief during her teen years. It's like people prepare you from birth to dread spending time with your daughters from the time they are 11 until they graduate from college. Between the hormones, middle school politics, and the struggle to figure out who they want to be, adults assume that teens, particularly girls are all eye-rolls and slamming doors.

And maybe they are. 

We are just entering the tweenage years. Anna is wrapping up fifth-grade and she and I are just starting conversations about crushes and mean girls and hormones and what kind of classes to take to prepare for college (yes, that starts now!). 

I love these conversations. Sometimes I walk away feeling like I've inspired her and helped her solve the problem and other times I leave sure I've made her problem a million times worse that and she will end up a homeless harmonica player thanks to my confusing metaphors and ex-boyfriend stories. 

But the thing I love most is that we have conversations.  Our goal for eye-rolls and ice cream is that it is a place where conversations happen. Each week Anna and I will tackle a topic. Some may be silly and others maybe more serious. Anna and I will both offer our viewpoints. 

Like this

{anna}

Being a fifth grader is a lot easier said than done. I feel like once I am a teenager life will be harder and I won't want to talk to my parents anymore. For now I go to my Mom or Dad for problems and I savor every talk that we have. I think that right now life is going pretty easy but in my crazy family, how can your life not be? I am just now entering the new universe of boys and mean girls and it is a lot harder than you would imagine. If you have a younger sibling and are going through puberty than you know that life can be pretty hard. I have a little brother named Ryan and he is very cute but very annoying. I think that I have tried many methods to calm down and not roll my eyes but sometimes you just need to close the door to your room and cry. I have done that quite a few times myself but I will always love my entire family{including my dog}.

[kristen]

Fifth-grade is almost over. Part of me wants to sing the hallelujah chorus and the other part of me is curled up in a corner weeping uncontrollably. I simply cannot believe that in two weeks she will walk out of that campus and be done with elementary school. Everyone tells you that it goes fast. In fact, that is almost all that they tell you. When you have a baby -- when they start kindergarten -- everybody tells you to savor every minute because it goes so fast, but you cannot possibly grasp how right they are until it is too late. Until it's over. Until you are sending their baby picture in to the yearbook so that picture can remind you that everybody from the nurse who delivered your baby, to your own mother, to the complete stranger at the grocery store, tried to warn you to enjoy every single minute because before you knew it she would no longer look like that chubby cheeked little cherub in the baby photo, but instead like the tall, beautiful young woman in the photograph next to it who is no longer an elementary student, but is off to middle school. And there isn't a single thing you can do to get one of those minutes back. 

So that's it! Whether you're smack dab in the middle of the tweenage years, they are long behind you or they are a decade away, we hope this will spark conversations with your daughter and that you will hang out a while. We'd love to hear from you! Please send suggestions of topics you would like us to cover -- things you've struggled with or had success with in your home. Anything is fair game, from keeping your room clean, what to listen to on the radio in the car, best dance moves, the possibilities are endless!