Tag: raising teens

Oddities #2

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As the mom of a brood of hungry teens, I tend to buy various favorite food items when they are on sale. Bagels fall into this category because they freeze well for a short period of time. I buy them, slice them, and pop them in the freezer for consumption over the next couple of weeks.

For some reason, it seems my children never finish one bag before they start another bag. I have, at times, had two or more bags with half a bagel kicking around in the freezer. After all, we all know that if you want a whole bagel, the top and bottom must both come from the same bagel, right? Teen rule #1 about consuming bagels: Do not ever split up a bagel to make a new whole.

Interestingly, the single bagel halves in my freezer tend to be the bottom half. In one way, that is not surprising. The bagel bottoms would likely be the last in the bag. The surprising thing is that I have found up to three bagel bottoms lingering in my freezer while a new bag is being consumed.

To discover the reasoning behind this oddity, I went straight to the source. “Would you rather eat the top of a bagel or the bottom?” I asked my youngest. He thought for a minute.

“The bottom,” he responded, so I asked him why. “It tastes better.” Hmm. If it is all the same bagel, does one piece “taste better” than the other? This thought is an interesting one, but does not explain the reasoning for the plethora of bagel bottoms in my freezer.

I moved on to my next test subject, who was cleaning her room. Since this activity is one I try not to interrupt, I made it quick. “Would you prefer to eat the bottom of the bagel or the top?”

“It depends on what kind of bagel it is. If it’s a sesame bagel, I’d rather eat the top because it has all the sesame seeds. If it’s a plain bagel, I like the bottom.”

The response of my oldest? “I eat them both,” …and everything else in sight, I’ve learned.

My research was, therefore, inconclusive. There is no reason that I should have three bagel bottoms loitering in my freezer. According to my children, they eat both tops and bottoms equally. Which leads me back to the question of when a container is empty. If half a bagel remains, but the eater wants a whole bagel, is the bag considered “empty”? This will likely remain another of the great mysteries of raising teens.

Packages

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My youngest and I were discussing a package that I recently ordered—not a present for anyone, but a necessary item to make some presents that I will be giving. Because I never think of it quite early enough, stores generally run out of the item by this point in the season. So I went online and found what I was looking for; and I ordered some. If I’m lucky, the package will be here before Christmas. “Maybe the package will arrive today?” W said thoughtfully.

“I’d be surprised. I don’t think it has even been shipped yet.”

His expression brightened in thought, and I could see his mind churning. “What if the government discovered the ability to teleport things, and they only shared the technology with the USPS and UPS?” Yeah… because that’s going to happen. But imagination is an amazing thing, isn’t it?

“So your packages just appear at your house? Like… Boom! There’s my package!?” I pantomimed a surprised look as I glanced at the kitchen floor.

He laughed. “Yep, like that.”

“Darn! I just tripped over my package. I wish those people would stop delivering things to the middle of my kitchen when I’m not expecting it!” I dramatized tripping over a package that appeared via this new delivery method.

“What if you ordered something heavy, and it landed on the cat?” He cringed for effect.

“Ooh, that would not be good! Hopefully, the cat could run away fast enough.”

“Especially if you ordered something really big!” he added.

“Yikes!” I responded, thinking back to a time when something very big was mistakenly delivered to my house. I had to call UPS to come pick it up because it wouldn’t even fit through my front door. I briefly wondered if they would be able to teleport a pick-up as well as a delivery….

“Imagine if you ordered a car, and it landed right on your kitchen table!” W said, and we both laughed. I imagine that would be the end of my house, not just my kitchen table.

And with a little imagination, I now know how thankful I am that the government does not (yet) have this technology!

Dark

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Each weekday morning, when I drive my son to school at the ungodly hour of just-the-other-side-of-dawn, we see people engaged in their early morning activity. Early in the school year, there was the woman who walked her dog not far from our house. She wore clothes the color of dusk as she walked her dusky shadow of a dog along the line on the road that separates the travel lane from the shoulder. One day, as she and her dog were crossing the street, their shapes emerged from the darkness just in time for me to swerve to avoid them.

Farther along on our trip, there was the man who walked to work in the early morning murkiness. His walk was brisk, and he bent slightly under the weight of a small backpack. As the temperature dropped, his pace began to quicken, and he always walked with his back to the traffic, unaware of the dangers. When it was raining or snowing or foggy in the pre-dawn, I would notice his form just beyond the edge of my car as I drove by.

More recently, perhaps because we have changed our departure time by a few minutes, we have seen one of my son’s friends standing outside his house waiting for his bus. We always look for him as we approach, but some mornings, we cannot tell if he is standing by the side of the road until the very last minute. Occasionally, it is only after we pass him that we notice his form lurking by the mailbox.

We started to think of ways to make this young man more visible in the dark. My son and I thought of light up clothing, but finally decided on a flashing Christmas necklace that looks like a string of lights. What does the friend think of this idea? He went along with it. He even discovered that the necklace had three different light settings. The one morning that my son didn’t go to school early, he wore it, and we didn’t get to see if it would work as we hoped.

Now (a day later), I hear the necklace broke. Its quality $3.54 construction couldn’t hold up to the morning routine of a 16 year old. We are looking to replace it before the holiday season is over and these necklaces are long gone. I definitely think we’ll be able to see him much better with the necklace.

While the necklace is a fun way to deal with this issue, our morning entertainment began as a simple lesson in visibility. For drivers young and old, the pale dark on the ends of the day is a tough time. And it is tough for pedestrians, as well. My son, a new driver, has had a great lesson in how challenging the dark hours can be. Being mindful of one’s clothing, and wearing bright colors (reflective or lighted!) can make a huge difference—for all parties involved.

Reversal

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We are sitting at the table eating dinner. Our kitchen table is right next to the window, and only the window shade and a thin pane of glass separate the cozy kitchen from the cold evening outside. If I were to stretch out my arm, I could almost touch the winter night that tries to filter in to share our meal.

I do my best to make sure we sit down to dinner as a family as often as possible, but I am finding that as the kids get older and busier, it becomes more difficult. On this night, not only have I had time to cook, we have time to sit together. The evening meal usually provides our best family conversation, and we all look forward to this time together. In fact, my children have commented on how many of their friends and acquaintances eat dinner on their own or in front of one screen or another.

As I converse with one of the boys across the table, in my periphery, I can see my daughter intently studying my face. We are discussing an incident that happened in the lunchroom at school, and though I try not to be distracted, my daughter leans a little closer, tilts her head.

There is a pause in the discussion. “Mom…” she says, moving even closer. On her face there is the scowl of a question. I turn to address her.

“What?” I ask, wondering what she is going to say, but knowing it has nothing to do with the conversation we were just having. I believe she has no idea what we were just saying.

“Is that my eye glitter you’re wearing?” she asks. Huh… I wasn’t expecting that.

When my daughter emerged all sweet and little-girl-cute at birth, I prepared myself for the day she would borrow my clothes, my shoes, my scarves and jackets, my jewelry and make-up. I prepared myself to be minus a vehicle when she borrowed the car keys and, of course, the car. But this—the reverse—I was not prepared for. And I certainly was not prepared to be caught in the act.

When I was a kid, we didn’t have eye glitter. We didn’t wear sequins and crystals and all things shiny. So the fact that I find these things appealing speaks both to my feelings of deprivation and to my slightly distractible nature. Shiny? I am there! The glitter make-up was purchased to enhance her performance make-up (because everyone uses glitter) and not because she wanted it. In fact, she doesn’t even like it anymore. Nor does she use it. Since I bought it, and it has now ended up in with my make-up, don’t I have some unspoken right to borrow?

“Indeed, it is yours!” I admit with pride. “Or… it was.”

“You can have it,” she tells me. “I don’t use it anyway.”

Share and share alike, I say. My day will come to share my stuff. Then it will be my turn to catch her in the act!

Real Estate

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“Mom, can we grow some fresh herbs on the windowsill?” C—my culinary kid—asks me out of the blue. We live in a townhouse, and we have windows on only our north and south walls. We have one main window where plants will actually grow, our south-facing kitchen window, and thankfully, it is a picture window with a deep sill.

“Um, sorry,” comes the voice of W from the other room. “I’ve already reserved the windowsill for a science experiment.”

“Dude!” C replies (because for some unknown reason, boys always call each other “dude”). “You can’t reserve the windowsill!! What kind of ‘science experiment’ do you have planned that you can do in the kitchen anyway?” His attitude is typical of a 16 year old who knows everything, and it is designed to be off-putting to a younger brother. W doesn’t bother to respond. He knows he will be criticized and chastised for even thinking he could take over the windowsill. In fact, through his brother’s tone of voice, he already has been.

“You can’t claim the windowsill,” C continues on his rant. “All I want to do is grow some herbs. Herbs belong in the kitchen. We can use them for cooking… we can dry them… and, your science experiment… in the kitchen? Really?”

“Mom already said I could do my science experiment. On the windowsill.” W is quiet but firm in his response. Personally, while I remember him saying he wants to ionize soil to see if plants will grow better, I can’t remember any other experiment; so I am hoping that this is the one. The combination of the stress of single-handedly raising three teenagers and middle age is not always the most conducive to productive thought processes. Things get lost in my head more often than I would like to admit.

“W, remind me again which experiment you want to do? I remember several you mentioned recently,” and it’s true. There is always something brewing in the head of this kid. Newer, better, more effective ways to do whatever the task at hand. And unlike his Mama, he has no problem accessing his thoughts and ideas in his amazingly complex mind. Thankfully, I am right that he wants to test plants and soil.

“Why don’t you combine your projects?” I suggest. “We can see if herbs grow best in soil that is ionized as opposed to soil that isn’t.” I, of course, think this is the perfect solution to the problem, and one that will limit the clutter on my windowsill. My boys do not.

“I don’t want my herbs to be part of some science experiment! He can grow his own plants in his experimental soil!” Clearly, this discussion is going nowhere. At least nowhere positive.

“Well, that would be a way for you to both use the windowsill and to collaborate. Ionizing the soil isn’t going to hurt your herbs. It’s not like he’s using radiation or something hazardous.”

“No way, Mom!” C leaves the room, and W and I look at each other. I roll my eyes. It is going to take some convincing. Teens are tough that way. Once they know something (and by know, I mean yup, he’s the expert), it can be difficult to sway them otherwise. Experimental soil or not, it seems this is the most likely solution to the real estate issue.

Of course, there is another option. I could continue to hog the windowsill with my plants. I do, after all, pay the mortgage.

Words

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It is 6:40 in the morning, and I am sitting in my car outside the high school. The drizzly not-quite-rain, not-quite-ice precipitation that has been falling for days has rendered the darkness a sooty mess that severely limits visibility. As on every way-too-early weekday, I am waiting for my son to wake up enough to exit the car, cross the street, and board the bus.

Our morning drive and wait time are sometimes quiet and sometimes filled with talk of this or that. Today, the sound of the wipers, intermittently slopping a mix of water and ice from my windshield, punctuates my thoughts, which center on an early meeting and the morning tasks that stand between now and that commitment.

The radio drones on, barely noticed until a clip of The View is played in which Whoopi Goldberg purportedly broke wind on air. Next to me in the front seat, I detect some movement from my son. The laughter of the DJs on the radio catches our attention, and their discussion moves to the etymology of the word “fart.” My son snickers.

The word, from Old English, has been kicking around much longer than I would have guessed. When the DJs start in with the Middle English, farten, and they speak in funny accents, both my son and I begin to laugh. We mimic their accents, and I sense this will not be the last time I hear this particular phrase spoken in this particular manner. We are still laughing as he says good-bye and gets out of the car; the DJs move on to another topic.

It was a perfectly timed radio segment. It grabbed the attention of the teen in the car, and shook him awake more effectively than I could have. And as an English teacher, I wonder what could be better to wake a kid than a rousing discussion of etymology? Sometimes, discussions of emotionally (socially…?) charged words have practical use as well as philosophical merit.

Oddities

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In my refrigerator this morning, I found the juice container with half a sip of juice barely visible in the bottom. Essentially, it was empty. I poured myself the little that was left, just to see if it might be at all satisfying. It was not. There was not even enough to wash down one tiny Vitamin D pill. I have a difficult time believing that the person who returned this container to the fridge couldn’t possibly ingest even a few lingering drops of juice. Really, I can’t imagine.

My first thought is laziness. The person who—by all reasonable standards—finished off the juice didn’t want to have to rinse out the container and throw it in the trash. That’s a lot of work, right? Most likely, the culprit was also considering the fact that the next person who wanted juice might complain that the person who used it all should be responsible for the trip to the basement to grab more juice…. But I’m speculating here.

My next thought is consideration for the needs of the next person to want juice. In fact, the culprit did not finish all of the juice, thereby leaving some for the next person. Or not.

Possibility number three: Science experiment. While we typically have numerous science experiments going on in our house at any given time, they are more likely to resemble something that would be confiscated in an airport security screening—metal and wires and miniscule electronic parts and battery packs that might have started a small fire once or twice in the past week or two. So “science experiment” would be a stretch in this case.

No, I am left to believe that this is the work of the teen brain. The culprit took out the juice, poured a desired amount into the cup, and put the container back where it was. There is no hidden agenda here. It wasn’t consideration for or a lack of thought for the next person. It was, in fact, a lack of thought. Juice goes in the fridge. End of discussion.

With three teen brains wandering my house, I know there will be more bizarre discoveries for me to question and obsess over. In fact, my house most likely holds a treasure trove of the not-quite-right. Discovering these oddities gives me food for thought, keeps me on my toes, and—oddly enough—inspires creativity!

Mornings

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It was crazy in our house this morning. On a Monday, waking up does not happen quickly, so I do what I can to fuel the flow of energy. This morning, as I made sandwiches and packed lunches, I made up a song about cheese. Yes, cheese. I dubbed it The single most boring song on the planet because all of the “rhyming” words were the same word—cheese. The cat didn’t seem to mind the song, but my younger son did his best to ignore me in our cramped kitchen. The other two children sleepily stumbled downstairs, my oldest stared blankly into the open refrigerator as teenagers so often do.

“I know!” I said, in an effort to spark conversation (or shock the Monday morning right out of them). “I think we should live a musical! From now on, we should sing everything!”

“Yeah,” C replied dismissively, shutting the fridge. “I’m not coming home anymore.”

“Well…. I’ll come home,” my daughter piped up. “But I’m not participating.”

“Oh….” I drew the word out long and slow. “You’ll participate.”

“I’m pretty sure I won’t, Mom,” she said as she popped two pieces of cinnamon bread into the toaster.

“I’m pretty sure you will,” I retorted.

“Whatever.”

“Wouldn’t that be fun?” I continued on my train of thought, daring someone to derail it. “We would just break out into song whenever we had something to say!” I broke out into song here in demonstration.

“Ugh!” I heard from the vicinity of the kitchen table. I put a sandwich in a lunch box and zipped up the top. I turned back to the sink to put spaghetti into a thermos.

C came walking through the kitchen with his backpack, whistling loudly. “Stop!” my daughter commanded. “That’s loud and piercing.”

C stopped in his tracks, feigning a look of shocked innocence. “What? I thought we were in a musical!”

I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help myself—his timing was perfect! If we had been keeping score, he would have been declared the winner, though my daughter would not have admitted it. But we were not keeping score. In fact, we all won. We all left the house wide awake, a little happier, and perhaps just a little sillier.

Flashbacks

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It is just past eleven, and I am flying up the highway faster than I should be in my present state of exhaustion. Between my son’s work schedule and my own, I have been driving this highway too late every night this week. My son is in the car with me, and he chatters on, animatedly telling me about his night at work.

On this night, he trained the “new kid,” and I remind him that he is the new kid. I can hear the smile in his voice as he says, “Not anymore!” He’s been working not quite three weeks, and he is already training other workers older than he is. He’s in this job to move up, but he understands he has to start at the bottom.

He keeps talking, and I force my eyes to stay open. Just a few more minutes, I tell myself. Despite the fact that I believe I am driving faster than usual, my speedometer says 60. The speed limit is 65, and I blame fatigue and the fact that it is dark and rainy and the road surface could be slick at this time of year. I don’t linger for even a second on the thought that I am getting older, and driving in the dark is not what it used to be.

For a brief moment as my son talks, I have a flashback to a time when he was little. Very little. (Think Steve Martin in Father of the Bride when his daughter is sitting across the table telling him about her wedding, and all he can see is this tiny little child telling him about her plans.) My son was in pre-school and he was at a birthday party. I always thought of him as somewhat of a shy-ish kid, especially in social situations. At this party, I was in the kitchen and there was a bit of a chaotic scene in the family room as the children tried to work together on a project involving string and glue and various pieces. All of a sudden, I heard my son’s voice rise above the voices of the other children. “Guys,” he said. “GUYS!!” and then he proceeded to relay the vision he had to make order out of chaos. At the time, his authoritative voice caught me so by surprise that I quickly moved to the door to watch what his four-year-old self take charge. In that moment, I saw an early flicker of his leadership potential.

Now, as he navigates his late teens, he is beginning to find his niche. He is involved in activities in which he feels comfortable and confident, and his leadership abilities are beginning to burn brighter. What once was a flicker is now a steady flame. It is amazing what can happen when a kid—anyone, really—finds his or her passion. I only hope he will continue to follow his passions, and not get distracted by the things that don’t matter.

I look forward to watching his journey, sharing in it with him, and helping him along the way. And I am hoping for many more of those crazy flashbacks to his childhood to remind me how far we have come.

Layers

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My daughter sits across the table, playing a cutthroat game of Connect 4 with my boyfriend. The competition between them is (playfully) fierce, and she is adamant that I not give him hints. Doing so would somehow constitute cheating, despite the fact that I am not a player in this particular game.

She arranges and rearranges the game pieces, jokingly scolding me when I even so much as look like I am going to help him with his next move. She knows that I am perceptive, and that somehow, most likely because I am her mother, I am able to anticipate her next move.

I find myself watching her with fascination. Her interaction has an ease and comfort to it. She laughs. She tries to trick him, and he laughs. She manipulates the pieces, looks up as though she is hiding something, and in the next moment, she is deep in thought. She is complicated and multi-dimensional, and watching her (and her brothers) grow throughout her life has given me insight into people—and their layers—that I might not have otherwise gotten. I know that she has grown this way by piling experience on top of interaction on top of practice and more experience. It is not a simple thing to create such a complex individual.

Recently, she and I took an art class in fused glass. We chose brightly colored pieces of glass, piled them on top of each other in a way that looked appealing, and sent them off to the kiln. The pieces came back smooth and beautiful, the layers had melted together and become inextricably combined. This process is much like what has occurred in my children as the incidents and experiences, both good and bad, have combined to make them who they are. Each of my children is multi-layered in his or her own way. The ways in which they navigate the world, the relationships, the simple moments of every day life make me marvel at all of the things each of them has learned. Even when they were little, I would watch—from across the table or across the room—as they worked on a craft project, a game, homework, etc.

I watch my daughter now, and in my mind, I trace the lines of her face, comparing the lines and expressions to what they were a decade ago… a year ago… yesterday. I memorize these same lines and expressions for tomorrow. This face, this moment, is fleeting, and I want to hold it in my head, a snapshot for the future. This is today, right now, and I want to be present in this moment.