Tag: teenagers

Watch

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My son and I were shopping, checking items off his packing list for camp. So many things he needed this year, it seemed, perhaps because he was going to a different camp for a more intensive week of training.

I had brought a short shopping list that included a couple of items, but I knew there was one more. What was it? I couldn’t remember. Then we walked past the display of watches. “Oh! You’re supposed to have a watch,” I told him.

He looked at me and then at the watch display. “I hate watches. They’re so annoying,” he reported.

It’s kind of funny how some people wear watches every day and others do not. I started wearing a watch when I was in elementary school, but none of my own children have felt the need to wear one. I wonder sometimes if it has to do with the prevalence of cell phones—if kids have their cell phones, they always have the time.

And we had tried this before—buying a watch. Each of my children has had a watch at one point or another. But it was back when they were quite young, and time wasn’t an issue because I was the keeper of their schedules.

“It’s up to you,” I said. “Your packing list says you need one, but I’m sure some of the other boys won’t have one.”

He walked around the watch display, checking out his options. “This one’s kinda cool,” he said, picking one up and examining it. It had a couple of features beyond the basics. The coolest feature was the time zone feature. Plus, it was water resistant and had an alarm, both of which would be handy at camp.

“If you want it, you can get it,” I told him, knowing the coupon in my pocket would reduce the price. “I’m sure it will be handy to have at camp.” Especially since cell phones wouldn’t be prevalent because electronics were discouraged.

At home, he spent a little time learning the features of the new watch, so he would know how it worked before we left for camp in the morning. (Yes friends, it was a last-minute shopping trip…). The next day, he walked out the door actually wearing his new watch.

A week later, when I picked him up at camp, he was still wearing it. As we walked to the car with his gear, he talked about the experiences he’d had over the past week: the hiking, the cooking, the activities.

Then he smiled that crooked smile he gets when he’s about to say something funny. “You know,” he said. “It’s really convenient to have a watch. You never have to wonder what time it is.”

“Yes,” I replied, looking at my own watch. “It is convenient, isn’t it?”

Socks and Stockings

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I went out on an errand with my son this morning, and we came across an interesting sight. On the side of the road, there was a man walking his bicycle up the hill. That, in itself, is not an unusual thing to see. However, this man was pushing his bike up the hill in just his socks because he was carrying his shoes.

Observing this from the passenger seat, my son said, “Why is he walking his bike?” Because from his perspective, if you have a bike, you should ride it.

My mommy-brain kicked in. “I am more concerned about the fact that he is carrying his shoes and walking in stocking feet!” I exclaimed. Then something in my mommy-brain started to dial back what I had just said.

Stocking feet…

 When was the last time I heard that idiom? Had I ever used it with my son before? Did he even know what that meant? Does anyone know what that means anymore? And I started to think about the word “stockings” and the fact that we never refer to our socks as “stockings.”

Over the years, when my children run through the door and out onto the walkway without their shoes on, I will say to them, “What are you doing outside in just your socks?” I have threatened to make them buy their own socks when walking on the pavement creates holes in their soles. But I don’t remember saying anything to them about “stocking feet.”

This is a term from my childhood. I can still hear my own mother clearly telling us not to walk around in stocking feet, that we should wear shoes or slippers or something. I half expected to Google the term and see—before the definition—the notation “archaic.” I was relieved to see the notation wasn’t there, and the examples were fairly current.

Perhaps I have used that term more recently than I remember because my son didn’t question my words, and I didn’t say anything more about the man walking his bike and carrying his shoes. Even still, my mommy-brain is stuck on that sight.

Driving with Teens

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I’m going on a drive or two. Why don’t you hop in the car and come along. I’ve written another post about what it’s like to drive with new drivers. Since most parents will likely experience this thrilling adventure eventually, I’d like to take you along on a couple of my experiences. So Buckle up… it’s going to be quite a ride!

 

Drive #1: Pedestrians

We are driving along when I see people walking in the road up ahead. (One might argue that these people should not be walking in the road, but that would be another blog post.) These people are a distance away, but close enough that we should begin to slow down.

“There are people walking in the road up ahead,” I inform the teen driver.

“I see them,” the teen replies. We continue moving at the same rate of speed.

“You should slow down,” I instruct.

“I am,” the teen driver informs me. I feel no difference in the speed we are traveling.

“SLOW DOWN!!” I snap.

“MOM!” the teen replies. “I AM slowing down. I’m not going to HIT them!!”

 

Drive #2: Highways

Highways are always a bit dicey. After all, highway driving requires a consistent high rate of speed, which most people who have only been driving for a month or two are not used to. Add in the occasional need for an evasive maneuver and, well, it’s not always pretty. On this drive, the traffic is fairly heavy. We are driving through a “city,” so vehicles are entering and exiting the highway. We are approaching an entrance ramp, and there is an 18 wheeler getting onto the highway.

“That truck is going to need to merge,” I say to my teen driver. The truck is far bigger than the car we are in.

“I see it,” my teen driver says.

“So… you might want to give him space so he can get in here,” I nudge.

“It’s his job to merge with me,” the teen informs me. This is information learned in driving class.

“I understand that,” I say. “But he is bigger than you.” And coming up fast, I want to add.

“That doesn’t matter, Mom,” the teen states. “I am in this lane, and he has to merge.”

“Yes,” I say, beginning to get impatient. “But he doesn’t seem to be slowing down. He wants to get in this lane, and it doesn’t seem to matter that you are here.”

“He can merge with me,” the teen is emphatic, but I see that the trucker clearly has no intention of “merging” with anyone. He owns the road he is not yet on.

“GIVE HIM ROOM!!” I raise my voice. “He is much bigger than you, and he is NOT stopping!”

“He was supposed to merge with me,” the teen grumbles. “I am in this lane.” While I can’t argue with my teen’s knowledge of the laws and right of way, there is something to be said for “an ounce of prevention….” Especially in the case of a vehicle that is many times bigger than the one you are in.

 

Drive #3: Medians

Sometimes, learning about medians can be an interesting adventure. Pulling out of a shopping plaza with a very new driver means the teen is not yet even paying attention to things like medians. We are at a four-way intersection of several parking lots as we are leaving a restaurant, and my teen is driving.

“Turn left here,” I say, not even thinking that there are two possibilities. My teen does as I say, turning left and completely missing the “keep right” sign. We end up to the left of the median.

“STOP!” I say, and the teen stops the car and looks at me.

“What?”

I am simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief and laughing at the situation. “Back up.” I point to the median out my passenger window. “You need to be on the other side of this median. See those cars?” I point to the intersection up ahead. “They are going to be coming in here.”

“Oh. Well, you told me to turn left, so I did.” Thankfully, everyone in the car thinks this is marginally funny. “You didn’t tell me I had to go to the other side of the median.”

“No, I did not. My bad,” I say, as we readjust into the correct lane and continue on our way.

 

Drive #4: Impatience

We are driving on a two-lane road. We are observing the exact speed limit. I will be the first to admit, the speed limit feels a bit slow on this road, but kudos to the driver for maintaining a consistent and perfect speed.

The car behind us does not appreciate driving the speed limit. It has been on our bumper since we turned on this road. I don’t believe the teen driver has noticed, but I have.

Suddenly, the car behind us pulls out into the other lane and speeds past us. The teen driver slows to allow him easier passage in what is a no passing zone.

“Well, he’s in a hurry!” the teen comments, accelerating back to the speed limit.

 

Hey, thanks for coming along for the ride! These teen drivers, my first two… they have been somewhat easy to teach. My youngest, he’ll be driving in just a few short months (nine to be exact, but who’s counting?) I’m a bit concerned about that one. He is already calculating how fast my car can go without self-destructing….

Knots

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One morning last spring, W was practicing his knots (because Scouts do that kind of thing when they’re bored…). He was using a long length of climbing rope, and somehow, he thought that tying one end to the couch and the other to himself was a good idea. Hold that thought….

J and I were in the kitchen having a conversation about the day. We were preparing to do some community service, and we were reminiscing about previous experiences at this same site in years past. I had started my breakfast, but as usual, I had twenty-five different projects I was also tending, including the laundry in the basement.

W kept calling to me, wanting me to know just how far (or not) he was able to stray from the couch. He was, quite literally, on a relatively short leash.

I popped a bagel in the toaster, cracked two eggs in a pan, and took a quick trip upstairs to gather laundry. When I returned, the bagel popped up, and I removed it from the toaster. However, because the bagel was frozen when I put it in, one particular part just didn’t seem to be done, so I pushed it back down. I didn’t plan to leave it for the entire toasting cycle. I flipped the eggs and went down to drop the sheets in the laundry room. I started the washing machine, poured in the detergent, and added the sheets.

When I got to the top of the stairs, W made sure I saw his knots as I walked through the living room. “Nice!” I complimented as I gave him the thumbs up.

The acrid smell of burning toast hit my nose just as the smoke detector screamed a piercing bleep. Darn! My first thought came through the screaming of the smoke detector. A good bagel, ruined!

But then from the other room, interspersed with the beeps, I heard a small, pathetic, voice. “Help? Help me!”

And then a splay of laughter erupted from the child who had tied himself to the couch. Clearly, he had approached this knot-tying activity with a false sense of security. Because after all, what if…?

I looked at J and tipped my head, indicating our escape through the door. She smiled in conspiracy. We took off running out the front door (safety first, you know) where we stood on the front walkway laughing so hard we were doubled over. The bleeping of the smoke detector stopped as abruptly as it had begun. We were deeply amused with ourselves and the situation.

Back in the house, W remained in the living room, expertly tied to the leg of the couch. He, too, was laughing. Of all the times that the smoke detector could have gone off, it happened when he was unable to leave his spot in the living room.

Of course, if it had been a real emergency, I would have grabbed the scissors and cut him free from the couch before I ran out the door. He would have been mad, initially, that I had ruined his rope, but he would have been grateful that I had saved his life.

Burnt toast, however, does not constitute a real emergency, but a valuable lesson was learned that day. The thought of tying oneself to the couch to practice knots… maybe that’s not such a good idea.

Appetites

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For some reason, I had ventured into this summer thinking I might catch a break in the grocery department. My youngest was planning a backpacking trip right after school ended, a week at camp in June, and another week at camp in July. With all that time away, I wouldn’t have to buy as many groceries, right?

Wrong. Instead, my son has been on a feeding frenzy this summer. When he returned from three days of backpacking, he needed calories. And lots of them. With three days of hiking—and carrying a pack to boot—he had worked off most of the nearly non-existent fat reserve he maintains. His muscles needed fuel.

When he returned from camp, the story was nearly the same. The boys were active from sunrise until bedtime—classes and hiking and traipsing around the camp, uphill in all directions, it seemed. And the boys were responsible for cooking their own meals. Some days, the food was overcooked; some days, it was closer to raw. He ate, sure, but….

These teenagers, their hunger comes in layers. There is the: I just got up and I’m kinda hungry hunger. That one is easily satisfied with breakfast, or in the case of my oldest, who rises midday, lunch.

There is the: I’ve been at practice for three hours and I didn’t eat enough before I went. Please let me at the food NOW kind of hunger. That one requires some leftover dinner, generally a more substantial meal will satisfy this hunger.

My youngest has been experiencing the: I’ve been away [at camp, backpacking, etc.] working out all day and I haven’t had anything to eat all week but rehydrated pack food or food burned by the boys in my patrol kind of hunger. This is serious. This hunger requires hundreds maybe thousands of calories over a period of days to finally satisfy. In truth, I am not sure there is enough time between camp pick up last Saturday and camp drop off this Sunday to make a dent in that hunger. And the food at the grocery store is getting sparse from my frequent visits.

Catch a break on groceries? Not a chance. The money I don’t spend on the weeks my youngest is away is just a small down payment on the groceries for the following week. He is hungry, and he needs fuel for all of his summer activities. And he’s not the only one. I have three active teenagers, after all.

*[Image is a photo of the typical state of the food supply in my house.]

The Door

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My son stood in front of the open refrigerator, door wide open, staring at the contents. The light spilled out onto the floor, where it turned the tile a brighter shade of white. The cold air cascaded from the opening in a mist of fog that quickly dissipated in the summer heat. My son was transfixed, as if waiting—I suppose—for something appealing to suddenly materialize on the shelf in front of him.

“Close the refrigerator!” I scolded. “Figure out what you want before you open the door. Don’t browse.” I have yet to figure out why I have to say this so often….

He closed the door. “There’s nothing to eat in this house.”

I don’t know how that can be. Before I went to the grocery store yesterday, I asked him if there was anything he wanted me to get. All he said was sub rolls. I got the sub rolls, so he really has nothing to complain about.

But that is neither here nor there. I’d rather take a step back and examine the habit of standing in front of the open refrigerator door.

From the kid perspective, I can understand the disappointment of opening to fridge with the expectation of something great only to find nothing that you want to eat. I can almost understand the need to wait and hope for something appetizing to appear. Because really, if you stand there long enough, staring at the available options, something may eventually inspire the palate, right? A combination that wasn’t previously realized might become evident. Something worth eating must be contained in the refrigerator somewhere, mustn’t it? Search long and search hard, and eventually you will find it.

From the parent perspective, particularly the single parent perspective, I see the cost of standing in front of the open fridge—the energy wasted. I see the food that was purchased only yesterday being cast aside as inedible simply because the teen might have been eating that food last week (with great fondness), but the same teen doesn’t care for that particular food item this week–and won’t care for it until well after it spoils.

Yes, there are two perspectives to this problem, both justified, and I am in search of the win-win solution. The solution would be a refrigerator in which amazingly appealing food will appear, as if by magic, when you open it. That would solve this problem once and for all. And it might solve another problem or two, as well….

“What’s for dinner, Mom?”

“I don’t know. Open the refrigerator and see.”

Summer

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Today was the official last day of school, though only one of my children actually had to attend school. The high school finished up last week, with today set aside for students who needed to take make-up exams. The middle school—and lower grade students—had a half-day of school today. The last day.

When my son came home from school at 11:40 this morning, my daughter looked at him, confused. “Where did you go today?” she asked him.

He looked at her, a steady, blink-less stare, as if to say, Really? But he turned and walked away without saying a word.

Today is the first official day of summer, and my house is full of teenagers. A pile of shoes greets anyone who dares to enter the house. I think my boyfriend and I—both seasoned educators of teens—are the only ones who dare. The parents who arrived for drop-off and pick up waved tentatively from their cars.

Giggling, laughing, screaming, some piano playing, a bit of singing, chatting, and a lot of texting were the activities of the day. Swimming, pizza, and more laughing and giggling were sprinkled in for good measure.

Because I reside in a townhouse and share walls with others, I warned my neighbors of my houseful of teenagers. They didn’t seem to mind. Then again, it is only the first official day of summer….

Meanwhile, I sit at my kitchen table trying to complete the day’s work. Over the years, I have learned to navigate the noise and commotion of children in the house while I work. Because in the summer, I work from home. My crazy home.

Over the years, little has changed. Friends have come and gone. Voices have grown deeper and the shoes… they have grown bigger.

It’s officially summer. Welcome to my crazy home. Hopefully, the pile of shoes at the door won’t scare you.

 

Daily prompt: summer

Cookies

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I picked up my son from the eighth grade class trip (very) late on Friday night (technically, the wee hours of Saturday morning). On the drive home, there was a tired, train-of-thought conversation that involved discussion of the things my deep thinker had been churning in his mind on the 12-hour bus ride home.

“You know, the Capitol dome was constructed of cast iron,” he told me. “In the 1850s and 60s,” he added. “That must have been quite a feat of engineering.” He stared out the window as the darkness passed by while he thought. “I wonder how they had the technology to get that up there back then.”

Nearly nine million pounds of ironwork, I have learned. My son thinks about the process of construction: how they created this immense structure. How they managed to move it to the top of the Capitol building. Meanwhile, my mother-mind wonders about the safety of the building on which that weight is resting and the lives of the people within that building. That’s a lot of weight for the walls and foundation to hold.

“And you know,” he continued, breaking me our of my reverie and revealing the randomness of his reflection. “The National Archives are much harder to get into than Nicolas Cage makes it seem.” I chuckled as my mind drifted to thoughts of the movie, National Treasure.

“Of course,” I told him. “That’s Hollywood. They had to make it possible, or the story line wouldn’t have worked.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “I just wanted to point that out. It’s really hard to get in there.”

“I’m sure it is. Think about what’s in there.” I paused to see if he had anything else to add. The silence stretched until I asked, ”Did you finish all the cookies I sent?”

“Oh, I finished those a long time ago… on the bus ride down on Tuesday.”

“Did you share them?”

“I tried.”

“What do you mean, ‘you tried’?” I asked.

“Nobody wanted any,” he stated, as if teenagers don’t get hungry.

I puzzled over this one for a minute. Eighth grade boys and homemade cookies. This didn’t seem right to me. “No one wanted any? Did you offer them one?”

“Well,” he hedged. “I probably could have done better with that.”

“You didn’t offer one to anyone, did you?”

“Yes, I did.” he said.

“And….”

“Well, when I offered one to Jon, he was wearing ear buds.” He paused here before he said, “He didn’t answer.”

“So you ate them all?”

Even in the darkness of the car, I could see the smirk on his face.

Yesterday…

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Yesterday… I held my first child in my arms—all six pounds of him—as he wiggled his feet and studied my face, searching for recognition and committing my features to his brand new memory.

Yesterday, my first-born said good-bye to his childhood, adulthood dawning the next morning despite the fact that his birthday wouldn’t be official until late in the day.

Yesterday… I held my fingers out for two chubby hands to grasp, and I bent over to toddler level to “walk” him up and down, up and down, up and down the hall while he smiled his gleeful smile.

Yesterday, I stood on tippy toes to hug my son good-bye before school. The morning good-byes are now bittersweet, and I (at least) am holding on to each and every precious one.

Yesterday… I sat with my son at preschool because he didn’t want me to leave him behind. I sat in the classroom for several of the first few days, quietly watching, until he grew comfortable with the idea of me leaving.

Yesterday, my son walked out the door—too rushed for a decent breakfast—in his need to pick up his girlfriend and consult with this friend and that group adviser before the school day was underway.

Yesterday… my son spent hours at the kitchen table with paper, scissors, glue, stickers, ribbon, clay, etc. crafting some of the most impressive art projects seen in the past few decades. His eyes would be bright with ideas and possibilities as paper shards scattered across the floor where they would stay until the vacuum came through to gobble them up.

Yesterday, my son finished assembling the high school literary magazine. As with his projects of old, he was excited to watch it come together. To move from individual pieces of writing and artwork to a finished compilation, bound into a single, cohesive whole that will be distributed to the student body.

Yesterday… my son graduated from kindergarten. It was a warm, sunny day, and the room was sticky from little kid use. When the ceremony was over, we celebrated with ice cream sundaes, pictures with the teacher, and some playtime on the playground before we left the tiny “campus” to move on to a bigger school and a full day program.

Yesterday, my son’s graduation announcements arrived in the mail. The paper was stiff and fresh and official and embossed with the school seal and His. Full. Name. He promptly reported that his name was misspelled, compelling me look more closely. The glint in his eye and his sense of fun have not changed or faded over time.

Yesterday, when I was talking to my daughter about her brother’s birthday, I accidentally referenced it as his 13th birthday rather than his 18th birthday. Because in my mind, he will always be some combination of ages that is far less than his actual years. And because…

Time. It’s like that. It bends and warps and does crazy things to our brains, making us think that moments have stood still when years have passed.

Yesterday. So many yesterdays.

 

*Image is a photo taken yesterday by my talented daughter and used with her very gracious permission

Emotions

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I have always been the type of person to cry at things that I find particularly moving, movies mostly—happy, sad, it doesn’t matter. I will cry. When I was pregnant with my children, I was particularly prone to crying at any little thing. I figured it was the hormones.

This past weekend, I was driving my daughter to a sports competition two hours from home. She was in the seat beside me dozing off. Despite her presence in the passenger seat, essentially I was on this drive alone with my thoughts.

Spring has landed with full force here in New England, and the hills are fluffed with an intense range of spring greens—pale green, bright green, pinkish green, yellow green. Even some flowering trees are sprinkled in, as well. As I drove, I was struck by the beauty, and my heart was full; I started tearing up.

Wait, what? I am crying at the vibrant spring greenery on the hillsides? Who cries at that??

Admittedly, it is an emotional time. The previous night, my son went off to the prom, and we are preparing for high school graduation. The emotions that I feel are in some ways exactly what I expected, and in some ways so much more intense than I could have imagined. On any given day, I will cycle from nostalgic to proud mom to happy to sad. I will run through years’ worth of memories all the way through now and to the future.

For now, it seems, I am once again particularly prone to crying. Apparently, those times come and go. This bout will stick with me, at least through the next month. Perhaps, I will keep my sunglasses handy—a good way to hide my tearing eyes—and pray for lots of sunny days so I can wear them without question.

Then again, does anyone really care if I let my emotions show?