Tucker is definitely in-between a child and a teenager. As he calls it, he is a “tween”. He informed me of this last year as we were driving to soccer. “You know, I am a tween now.” “A tween?!” I replied. “Yeah, a tween. Because, I’m not a little kid anymore and I’m not a teenager yet, so I am in-between. A tween.” Ah-ha, this made perfect sense.
Example of the Teenager:
The “I don’t care” & “whatever” phase.
Tucker came home from a week long overnight camp at Silver Falls with a new attitude. This was a week that we could both envision what Tucker was going to be like in middle school. “Whatever, I don’t even care.” Thankfully it was very short lived after Uncle Adam & friends turned on their “whatever” attitude. However, it will come back, just hoping it is still a few more years away.
Example of The Child:
Tears and nightmares.
Peer pressure is a hard one. Tucker came home from his friend’s house and was in tears after hearing some scary ghost stories. It happened at Halloween also, when he opted to watch scary movies with the older kids at a sleepover rather than excusing himself from the room. He spent the rest of the evening reading his bible from Grandma Susie learning about what comes next when people die.
The Tween:
Learning to be on time & responsible.
Tucker went to his friend Levi’s two days in a row, and both days came home late. After extra chores the second time, Tucker made sure he wasn’t late the 3rd time. He had one hour to go play at Levi’s before he had to be back to the house for dinner. Tucker double checked his watch so he knew exactly what 6:20pm looked like to make it home before 6:30 and off he went. Tucker came back 20 minutes later at 5:40pm.
“What are you doing Tuck?”
“Am I late?!”
“No, you are really early! You still have 40 minutes to play at Levi’s, you were only there a few minutes!”
“It’s okay, I just didn’t want to be late again.”
He’ll catch on to the concept of time sooner or later. Fifty minutes early is way better than 3 minutes late.
Curse Words
Every so often Tucker breaks out some swear words. In past years, it has been after returning from a trip to California. His justification of, “my real mom lets me say it,” is quickly followed up with, “we don’t use those words in our house, nor are you allowed to use them in school.” (Tucker was 8.) Every once in awhile they pop up in his writing or drawing, which has gotten him in trouble at school twice this year.
Recently Tucker has categorized the word “crap” as a word that’s not allowed in our house. I caught him the other day using it when we were cleaning out stuff. “Hey Dad, that’s a lot of carp. Do you know what I mean Dad, carp?!” He was referring to a large pile of cat poop. I chuckled to myself, and didn’t correct him. It was quite obvious that we all knew exactly what Tucker meant by carp. Tucker had come up with a clever way to use the word crap, without actually saying the word. 
Sidebar: A few months ago he came home from his friend’s house, and as we were talking to him about his day, he threw up his hands in frustration. “Ohh CRAP! I can’t believe I forgot my bag over there!” I quickly said “Excuse me?” (Not about the word crap, but his overreaction from forgetting his bag.) “Holly! I’m 10 now! I can say the word crap if I want to!” “Well, since your 10 now, you can be more responsible and remember your belongings then.” I am the ultimate in evil step-mother.
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