Neutral

While driving Middle Child to a friend's home this afternoon, she was trying to plan out what they might possibly talk about all afternoon. Heh? Two tween girls are going to be sitting in silence all afternoon. Riiight. Instead of "Riiiight." dripping with requisite sarcasm, Good Mom responded to MC's concerns with the neutral, "Why don't you talk about all the cool stuff you've been doing?" (Internal cringe for use of uncool word, "cool" in a sentence.) My precious girl responded, in a tone that failed to find neutrality, with, "Yeah. Awesome, Mom... I'll talk about sleeping and playing on the computer." Good Mom's neutrality is slipping. "Well, let's see... there was the week of musical camp, the days spent on Mission McKinney painting, redoing your room, the trip to Texarkana, your cooking classes, swimming..."
"Oh! Yeah! The paddle boats, all the stuff at church, the Summer reading assignment... Wow. We have been really busy. Wow. I don't know even know where to start. How am I ever going to fit all the stuff we've been doing into just one afternoon's conversation?"
I am so glad not to be twelve.