It all started out of frustration. She didn’t like me any more. I sure didn’t like her. How did we get to this place?

Veronica and I had been so close. Lately my eldest ginger daughter was clearly annoyed by my existence. I know moms can have that effect on their 11 year olds, but it’s shocking when you receive the eye-roll.

Out of desperation, I started googling every book I could find on how to live under roof and still communicate. Anyone who naively thinks that kids needs less attention as they get older is just ignorant.

If kids don’t trust you, they are going to look someplace else for that trust relationship. Do you know your kids well enough to even know where they’ll turn? It’s not that most of us are untrustworthy as parents. It’s just that they have to feel it in their hearts. They have to want to talk to us at all, let alone spend time with us. Veronica and I seemed to have lost that.

I had read a pretty good book by Danna Gresh on raising boys, so I looked into her programs for girls. Yes, I admit, Amazon immediately got somewhere between $50 and $75 out of me for everything Danna wrote. I was desperate.

The books offered some good insight, as did the 5 Love Languages of a Teenager book by Gary Chapman. But a lot of it just wasn’t us. I couldn’t translate it to our relationship.

I work full time and homeschool. It’s like 2 full time jobs. I have 7 kids, each with their own emotional and physical needs.

The Love Languages book helped me to feel empathy, and ride out some of the emotional rollercoasters with more patience. But the conduct permitted in his examples just wouldn’t ever fly in my home.

I’m not in a financial position to give my kid money to go to the mall. I started working at 12, as did my husband, as have my kids. If they want to buy something, they usually have to pay for it themselves and find a way to get to the store. And the amount of backtalk he allowed made me cringe.

The Danna Gresh books are really helpful, but I constantly felt myself letting Veronica down. We talked about these 8 Great Mom-Daughter dates, but Veronica eventually asked me to be more realistic. With my schedule, I just don’t have time to spend 2-3 hours with her alone outside the house, much as I may want to.

Also, the mp3s included with the book are just not my daughter’s style. They’re fun and girly, but in a different way than she likes.

So, the wall between us remained up for a while, with me feeling guilty, although Veronica really liked that I was trying. We did the first date, but I never was able to schedule in the second.

Then my daughter had a brilliant suggestion. “I love to cook and bake. You love to cook and bake, and know how to do a lot of it better than I do. Can we bake together for a couple of hours of week and you can teach me?”

She’s a genius.

Truth be told, she’s a far better baker than me. I never bother sifting or bringing eggs to room temperature. She has a natural gift. She makes up recipes from scratch and they come out perfect. I was never able to do that.

But together we endeavor to learn from each other, and create yum yums for everyone else. Much like her Momma, she doesn’t really like to eat the baked goods. We both enjoy the challenge of making them. So any recipes you find here have usually been altered to have far less sugar. We like the savory kind of life.

I’ll keep you posted on our savory and sweet concoctions. Next post will be lemon curd with a side of mathematics and birth control.