Well, I thought Halloween with my teen daughter was a good idea.

So, as background my daughter and I haven't always been close. She has ODD (Opposition Defiant Disorder) which has always made our relationship..well hard and good moments or events are very special to me because they historically are rare. Anyway, she's a high school freshman and it seems emotional maturity has helped and we have been getting along much better. For example, she's able to talk through stress and anxiety 50% of the time rather than shutting down completely. Anyway, tonight was the first time she wasn't going trick-or-treating which is a bummer, the end of childhood and all.We went to Target to get cupcake explosion supplies and I got her some mark-down stuff. I am usually a homemade baker so even though it seems weird buying a box cake and pre-made frosting is a rarity for us. When she was younger she hated that I made every cake and baked good but I was trying to mitigate her symptoms with diet (now that she's a teenager in high school she eats crap every day and it doesn't seem to matter much). We spent over an hour in Target and had a lot of fun. Once we came home my husband made some homemade pizza and all the interactions were great. She decided to sit on the front porch and hand out candy so I asked if I could join her. We ate dinner together watching best of Vines on her phone and handed out candy. We had a good 2 hours of fun interaction. It was great and I felt awesome having an easy mom/daughter night.Once we finished the candy though she just shut down and retreated to her room - which is normal when she feels overwhelmed. I knocked and tried to talk to her, she was kind and understandably upset because she spent Halloween with her mom instead of with her friends. I know that is normal and I'm happy she was able to express her feelings clearly and calmly. I guess I'm bummed. Like I said, our relationship is complex and difficult and I'm so aware that my time with her before she's out in the world is waning - I feel selfish and so sad that at this moment our time together wasn't meaningful to her.Full disclosure: I'm new @ reddit and I 'think' this is the correct place to post this. I'm honestly not looking for sympathy just needed to get it out of my head. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2eu4hbd