I remember the day my mom came home from the parent orientation at Actis Junior High in 1986 and would not tell me any details but just looked all smug and proud of herself, like she had just figured out how to hide candy in the house.

But the truth came out eventually.

She called my friends and me “hormones with feet” all that year and giggled behind her hand, like she had a special secret.

Her favorite word that year was “nevertheless.” Any time I asked for something and she said no and I gave a really impressive, valid reason why she should agree, she would whip out her “nevertheless.” It would be, “Nevertheless, I have already decided” THIS and “Nevertheless, I said no” THAT. By the time I finished seventh grade, I was so done asking.

Which was the point, I suppose.

I am on the other side of all that now. Now “Ashley, are you ready to go?” is met with “Mm.”

“Ashley, what do you want for lunch?”

“Mhm.”

“Ashley, do you need anything from the store?”

“Mm.”

I don’t think I ever responded with “Mm.”

I was always ready to go on time.

If I had been asked, I would have had an opinion about lunch.

If I had been asked, I would have had a list of things I needed from the store.  Film for my camera. Make-up. Pens and paper and Shirt Tales rubber stamps and corn nuts (Oh how I loved corn nuts) and hair scrunchies and stickers and pins for my Levi’s jacket and fluffy socks and gum and pretty much anything you could buy at Longs Drugs.  Photo frames and gift wrap and earrings and candy and cookies and beef jerky and those really big pickles and Hello Kitty Band-Aids and Seventeen magazine and chapstick and any kind of stationery and colored pencils and big pink erasers and a pencil sharpener and a pencil case. ANYTHING. If I had made a list, it would have simply stated, “anything.” I loved everything they sold at Longs.

My twelve-year-old daughter just says, “Mm.”

But there was an Amazon package sitting in front of the door when we came home one day with her name on it, and she actually jumped up and down and squealed, “Oh! Yay! It’s the hat I ordered!” and within two minutes, she came out of her room wearing a fluffy white hat with a bunny face embroidered on it. (Or maybe it is a dog. I could not be sure.) It had tall bunny ears–or possibly dog ears–and then long flaps that came down past her shoulders. And she squeezed the flaps, and the ears popped up and down. And she was giggling like it was the most fun she’d had all year. And I thought this kid was too grown up to condescend to having a conversation. Yet there she was, giggling like a little kid over a silly hat and looking at me with eyes full of pride and hope that I would laugh, too. And so how could I not?

But seriously?  A bunny (or dog!) hat with ears that flop down and pop up?

And the next morning, I poked my head in her room, where the bed had been made by 7 am, and I said, “Good morning! How was your night?”

And I got, “Mm.”

That is what being twelve means: It means you are mostly a moody hormone with feet.

But every once in a while, you let your inner child shine and bring silliness and love to those around you.