My Daughter is an alien...

I've really put a lot of thought into thisI really have. And there is no other way of putting it so here goes. My eleven-year-old daughter is an alien. I'm convinced that sometime shortly after her tenth birthday, an alien civilization scooped up Daddy's little girl', and replaced her with a pretty good copy, but I think all the circuitry controlling emotions and rational thought have been installed with faulty parts or something. I know this sounds really out there, but I don't know how else to explain it. She used to be such an easygoing kid. Used to play with dolls. I could tease her about her feet or something and she'd giggle. Now she talks on the phone for hours and paints her nails. The only thing she uses dolls for is to throw at her sisters. And the only reaction I get for some playful ribbing is a stream of nonsensical blubbering and "You don't love me anymore blaaaaaahh!"

Holy crap who is this child? And apparently I'm not the only one. I've done research. I've talked to other fathers who have noticed the same thing at approximately at the same age. One day, they're playing with their daughters at the playground, buying them ice cream. The next day, the kids got a phone in one hand, an mp3 player in the other, and her clothes have inexplicably shrunk four sizes. And the dialect changed drastically.
Example: Before, describing her best friend inviting her to a birthday party "Daddy, Brittany asked me to come to her birthday party. She said it'll be at the swimming pool and her mom said she'd pick me up and bring me home. Can I go?" AFTER: Uh, like, Daddy, uh, yeah, Brittany asked to like go to her party, and I'm like, where, and she's all, I dunno, I think Mom wants to do the lame pool thing and I'm like that so 5th grade, and she's all duhhh, and so we'll probably like have all the boys there too, and hehehehehehehe" What language is this? You think I exaggerate. This is actual conversation. I don't know where my baby went. It was like overnight (now I'm saying like) and my toddler turned into valley girl.
Now every time I see a report on TV about some crackpot tying to build a radio telescope in his backyard to communicate with distant civilizations, I don't laugh anymore. I understand. He's trying to figure out where his little girl went.

Learn more about this author, Eugene Gustafson.
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