Contemptuous sighs and lethal stink-eyes
Silent treatments that last for days
Their digits double, omnipotent
Our IQs fail by half, dotage
Teen years, an exhausting level
Of parenting purgatory
Still, I survive
The Trifecta challenge this week is: Survive [noun \ sər-ˈvīv\] 3: to continue to function or prosper despite : withstand
While out photoging today, I had an epiphany.
I read about the trials my online friends have with their teens, and empathize with their troubles with moody kids. I have wonderful, loving relationships with both my kids, but when they were younger teens, it wasn’t always that way. For a few years, early high school days, it was like living with Body Snatchers.
In my experience, this phenomenon was more acute with my daughter. Maybe it’s just girls, maybe it’s mother/daughter theatrics… all I do know is that when my daughter was between 14 and 16, she was perpetually pissed off – at life in general, and at me more specifically.
Sometime during her senior year in high school, she mellowed, and the sweet girl I remembered resurfaced. After a recent weekend with my now grown daughter, I realized that she is a really fun date.
My epiphany was to finally realize why she was so angry all the time. She was completely overwhelmed and I was an easy target.
She knew she could push buttons boundaries, and I would still love her, and support her – even if I was researching boarding schools.
An overachiever from a very early age, my daughter was never someone who to let ‘good enough’ be the norm. I clearly remember she coming home from elementary school with a B on a test, and mortified about telling her dad. To her, a B was failure.
In high school she took as many AP (Advance Placement) classes as she could, passing each test with a 4 or 5. When she graduated, she’d already earned 33 college credits. Her weighted overall GPA for all her courses was 4.7.
She carried this work ethic over to her sports. While not the strongest or fastest player, she was technically one of the best on her soccer and volleyball teams. It was like watching a chess game, she could ‘see’ a play to the end and adjust accordingly.
The pressure she exerted on herself was immense. Her father and I often told her that we only expected her to do her best. But her best had to be The Best. After the pressure of high school, college was easy.
So… to my teen parent friends, look at what is going on in your children’s lives. How motivated are they to do well, in academics, in athletics, in their personal relationships with peers and teachers. Are they an overachiever struggling to maintain a self-imposed high level of success? How’s that working for them?
If your teen is in a constant state of curmudgeonry, maybe they’re just stressed out. Having a ridiculous amount of coursework/homework, trying to keep their status on a sports team, dealing with girlfriend/boyfriend drama, coping with demanding teachers, would make anyone cranky.
Giving them a safe outlet to rant, to release some of that pent-up frustration, could mean a happier kid. One who smiles more than snarls. Keep those lines of communication open. Throw them off their game and tell them you understand they might be struggling, but that you’re available to talk whenever it gets to be too much.
Also remember, it gets better, and your darling children will re-emerge.
A boy and his car
It is a thing of beauty
Hopefully it runs
My son got his first project car, a 1990 Plymouth Laser, in 2009. It was three years older than he was at the time.
Over the next couple of years, he installed a new transmission, and an after-market body kit and a new paint job blinged it up.
He could never quite get the idle right though, and became disillusioned with it. He sold it this past May. With the money from that sale, he bought a 1997 Infiniti Q45. His sister teases him about his Old Man Car. He thinks it’s awesome.
He got gold-tone Junction Produce emblems for the grill and Nissan badges for the trunk (all the way from Japan), replaced the radiator (after overheating twice on the drive home from Alabama), and added a new steering rack.
He and his friends are in the process of upgrading the suspension with new coilovers. He wants to drop the chassis to about four inches from the road.
It’s a tuner thing, I’m told.
Once the new shocks are in, then he can finally give the Q its first real road test. Please, let it work! Please, let it drive great and let him be so excited about it, he won’t even think of another project car for many, many more years.
I’d like my driveway back. It’s starting to look like a car lot.
Haiku Friday is hosted by Lou at LouCeeL.
I took The Boy into town this week to buy a pair of skate shoes. The Hellboy cat has this annoying habit of sitting in people’s shoes and peeing. His latest impromptu litter box belonged to his Boy. My presence was requested on this shopping trip because I’m easier than his dad to talk into buying truly heinous looking shoes.
After a successful trip to the skate shop, a new pair of standard blue Adidas being acquired, we headed home – only to be caught up in evening road gridlock.
Since the drive home was going slowly, The Boy decided to try calling someone, someone who isn’t always easy to find. As usual, he had to leave a voice message. During his call, I had to deal with two asshats who refused to let me merge into a turn lane… I even had my turn signal flashing, and they still cut me off.
Traffic can make me a little road ragey, and I tend to go all potty mouth. I usually curb my enthusiasm for swearing when other people are in the car with me, but I let slip an f-bomb and a curse on the other drivers’ manhood. The Boy, traumatized, shushed me before my offensive language was background music for his message.
I promptly apologized and to make up for my faux pas, I complimented him on his succinct message. I confessed to how much I hate leaving messages myself and usually just ramble. He in turn confessed that when he leaves a message for any of his friends, it typically only consists of a long string of very loud expletives.
This befuddled me.
“You just told me you cuss in front of your friends, but it bothers you to hear me swear?”
He gave me one of those, ‘thanks-for-stating-the-obvious’ looks, and made a sort of ‘pffft’ noise.
“Oh, you just don’t want your Mother to swear in front of you,” I was now amused.
“Well, yeah.”
It would do no good to point out that’s exactly why I don’t like hear him swear in front of me. Even though he’s legally an adult, a mother still doesn’t want to hear her baby cussing. It’s not as cute when they’re 19 years old, as when they were 19 months old.
I guess, that I can’t complain too much. He did inherit his potty mouth from me.
I’m finally getting an opportunity to visit my daughter in her adopted state, and am headed out soon on a long road trip. Driving from Florida to North Caroline, in one day, is not something to attempt unprepared. Granted, there are three licensed drivers in our car, so dividing up the trip into three, four-hour increments sounds a little better than saying 12 hours cooped up in a car with two other adults.
If traveling alone, I’d be packed and ready to go two days ahead of time. Being that I’m traveling with Hubs “start-projects-at-the-last-minute” Roberts and The Boy “can’t-wake-up-before-noon” Roberts, odds are we’ll pull out of the driveway a good 2 hours behind schedule.
When my kids were very young, traveling with them was simple. They were great about sleeping in the car, or were easily entertained with audio books and toys. Typically we only stopped for potty breaks and meals.
It’s not so different now. Traveling with a teen, like with little kids, is manageable with the right toys, snacks and favorite blankie.
1. Favorite stuffed animal and lovie: Throw a pillow and blanket in the car, and they’re happy to sleep the miles away.
2. Favorite toy: Teens graduate from beloved action figures and dolls, to iPads, laptops or smart phones. Downloaded music, TV shows and movies, and e-books can entertain for hours. Just remember to bring charge cords and/or auxiliary connectors. Don’t forget to pack earphones too.
3. Snacks and juice boxes: Goldfish and gummies remain a favorite low-maintenance/low-clean up snack. Pack a cooler with G2s or Powerades, sodas, and bottled water and you’re good to go.
4. Picture books: Load up on magazines. If you have a book reader, hit the library before you hit the road.
5. Change of clothes: If it’s an early morning departure, let them sleep in their travel clothes the night before – T-shirt and basketball shorts, or flannel pj pants – and they’ll fall back asleep for several hours once you get driving. Stop for lunch or at a rest area and let them change into their regular clothes… or not.
Of course, I have my own survival kit packed to make the trip as stress-free as possible. Blanket – check; pillow – check; iPhone and laptop – check; snacks – check; books – check; pen and notebooks – double check. Bottle of pinot noir – check.
I have a horrible memory. It doesn’t matter if I try to remember events from my childhood, or high school, even college or two weeks ago. What I think I remember may not be an actual memory. I might be remembering family stories or making up my own from old photos.
When I was very young, our family would vacation in the Smokies in a little A-frame cabin near Townsend. I want to say I remember that. The musty smells, the soft clay slit of the river bank, the fireflies at night. But I can’t be sure it’s not just a created memory from looking through old albums.
I do have many fond memories of the cars in my life. From my Dad’s Corvair, to the family Pontiac, to my ’67 Mustang (my first car), to the ’74 Charger SE The Mister had when we started dating (bench front seat – ’nuff said.) I think I will also remember the first cars both of the children had too. The College Kid was given a ’03 Dodge Neon 5-speed for her 16th birthday, and The Boy got a ’90 Plymouth Laser RS as his first project car.
It bothers me that there are huge gaps in my memory, but it’s nothing new.
One of The Mister’s co-worker and his wife recently moved, and we helped him with a couple of garage sales. The Mister mentioned CW’s pet bird, a big exotic thing like a macaw or parrot. I didn’t know he had a bird… but I should have.
When this guy first moved to the area, he stayed with us for about a week. Not only did I not remember the bird he had with him, I didn’t remember that he was a house guest for seven days. Nothing, nada, zilch.
I have vague memories of little things from my first pregnancy, like what I was doing when I first felt The College Kid kick, but I’m sorry to say I can’t say the same about The Boy. (I was watching a Lady Vols basketball game on TV, lying on the couch rubbing my buddha belly lamenting “that at 17 weeks I should have felt her kick by now.”)
Granted, parents do tend to be less vigilant with their second child, but there are milestones I don’t remember about either of my kids, but especially my youngest. (I do remember that The Boy took his first steps on Father’s Day when he was about a year old.)
If only there were blogs back in the day. Parents today can record everything. They can keep photos and videos along with written accounts of all those childhood landmarks in one, archived, easy to access, location. Baby albums and scrapbooks just can’t record everything like an online journal can.
I started my first blog in 2007. My kids were 14 and 18, well beyond that cute toddler stage, but still of an age that I can enjoy going back through my old posts to read their stories.
In those five years, they both earned their high school diplomas, one graduated college and started grad school. One overcame some serious hurdles and is making his way toward independence and adulthood. They accomplished so many amazing things, and their futures are wide open in front of them. If one day I can’t remember these stories, then I can at least read about them again.
Still… I do wish I remembered more about their early years. I have a ton of photos, so I can look back and hopefully have my brain jump started. It’s just not the same though, and it makes me very sad.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a baby in my house, but I remember the seemingly endless nights of near terminal sleep deprivation.
The crying and wailing, kicking and screaming, and the babies were really loud too.
I remember getting, maybe, two hours of undisturbed sleep. Of not being able to truly relax, listening for any and all tell-tale sounds of distress.
Then they went to school…
The nights weren’t as bad, but the mornings became a constant battle. Week days were a struggle to get up, get ready and get out the door on time for school. Weekends, when a reasonable person could expect to sleep late, were for cartoons and video games, and organized sports. (What genius schedules soccer games at 8 a.m. on a Saturday morning?!)
Precious hours that could be used to catch up on those much needed REM moments, were turned into constant shuttling from home to ball fields, to friends’ houses to school functions, to… you name it, you’re driving to it.
Then they got their own driver’s licenses…
At first I got a little giddy thinking of all that time I’d get back. No more taxi mom, no more being the team van driver. The new teen drivers could get themselves around town, to and fro, without much more than $50 a few dollars for gas.
I knew where they were supposed to be and with whom. Under the ever watchful eye of other parents, even friends, I knew when they deviate from that approved itinerary. I had the added benefit of curfews, both municipally and parentally imposed.
Then they got jobs and made friends I don’t know, go out with those friends after work and drive home at all hours of the night…
That’s when I learned the real meaning of sleepless nights, and watched my sanity totally decay
Trifecta, a weekly one-word prompt, challenges writers to use that word in its third definition form, using no less than 33 words or no more than 333. The week’s prompt is: Decay [intransitive verb \di-ˈkā\] 3: to fall into ruin
Submitted as part of Shell’s “Pour Your Heart Out” writing prompt at Things I Can’t Say. Please stop by to read the other posts, and give a little comment love.
