Four Going on Fourteen

At 10:00 this morning I folded Ally's clean clothes and piled them in Crit's dump truck so Ally could wheel them into her room and put them away. I told her not to come out of her room until the clothes were all put away in the right drawers. After 10 minutes I checked on her... the truck was still full of clothes. A few minutes after that I heard crying and whining from her room, "This job is too boring. Why can't I do anything fun?" She whined like that for a while, and then it got quiet.

But not for long. Soon her door opened, she stomped out to the living room, looked me in the eye, and yelled, "How could you do this to your only daughter?!" Then she stomped back to her room and shut the door. Then I didn't hear from her for half an hour.

She came out at 11:15 and told me in her happiest voice, "Mommy, I've put all my clothes away in the right drawers. Can I watch a show now, please?"

If this is "Preschool Ally," how in the world am I going to deal with "Teenage Ally?"