Teenage Folklore

Middle Child came home from school with an awesome story.

"One of my friends told me about these two kids at school. They both had lip rings. One day when they were kissing their rings got stuck together. They couldn't get them apart cuz it really hurt. They happened to be outside the Science room and the Science Teacher came out to help them. He told them to undo one of their rings. They tried but it hurt way too much. Then he remembered he had just received a new acid for a science experiment. So he went and got his new acid and put just a drop on one of the lip rings and it melted the metal. Then the kids could finally pull apart."

I love that the stories haven't changed (much) since I was in school.

What stories have your kids told that you remember spreading as gospel when you were their age?

Back to School Afternoon

Today my children started school. Have you ever seen that commercial from Staples? It is a small sample of how I feel.

The afternoon before I took Middle Child over to the Junior High to check out his classes, find his locker, and get it decorated. Decorations for a Teenage Boy includes a White Board, Magnetic Pencil Cup, and Colored Markers. I insisted he bring all his stuff to school so he wouldn't be weighed down this morning. 

Being a typical teenager he huffed and said "I"ll bring it tomorrow."

"No, you'll take it this afternoon so you don't have to try and do it tomorrow while you're hurrying to class." I insisted again.

"No Mom!" huffing and sighing from the Middle Child.

"Well, we'll take the stuff to school with you and then let you wander around..."

We all climb in the car. As soon as we get to the school Middle Child hops out. He high tails it into the school, at least 10 feet in front of us.We all enter the school, us a few feet behind Middle Child. he frantically searches for his locker, hurrying.

Finally, "Here's my locker!" He sighs with relief. We help him put all his stuff in his locker, getting him ready for his first big day of school.

We shut the locker. He starts to head out to find his classes, his back turned to us.

"Middle Child!" pause "Middle Child!" He slows down. I grab his arm and he keeps looking the other way. "Middle Child!"

"What!" he finally stops.

I start to tell him to call me when he's done but he won't look at me. Quietly I say "Would you please turn around and look at me."

"What do you want?"

"I just want to tell you to call me when you're done and I'll pick you up. But I'd like to tell your face, not your back."

"Fine. I'll call."And he's off.

Despite my best intentions I have raised a bona fide teenager.

Teenager Wisdom

As you can see Middle child is becoming a Teenager. He's no longer a sweet-faced little boy. He manages to keep growing as I've talked about before.

But as for the teenager aspect of his growing up, his friends have also become teenagers.

He went to play Night Games last weekend with some friends. He called me for a pick-up rather early on Friday night.

"Why are you coming home so early?" I asked when he called, baffled that he was willingly coming home before midnight.

"There's lightning!" duh?

"Yeah, but can't you go inside and do something for a little while?" still baffled at the early hour.

"His parent's aren't home so we can't go inside."

Ooooohh! I understand now. We sometimes instill the same rule: No friends in the house while parents aren't home. But we and these parents obviously have no such rule for outdoors.

I love Teenage Wisdom.

The Dance

I recently explained Middle Child's need to be home more than should be normal for any elementary-age boy. I was worried about how that kid was going to turn out when he grew up. Would he ever move out and go to college? Would he ever be able to hang out with kids for hours on end, playing games, making prank phone calls, talking about girls, going to dances...

But he grew up. Well, only up to 12, he's not real old yet, like 15, or 16 and driving, or 18 and at college. He's still home under my wing. But less so than in the past. Nowadays he can play at friend's houses for hours on end. But at one time in the past I was worried.

A couple weeks ago I decided I didn't really have to worry about that child anymore. There was The Dance at school. Middle Child was going. And he wasn't just slinking in and hanging in the back corner. He called a couple friends and invited them over for a Pre-Dance Party at our house. One of his good friends is a twin, and the twin is a girl. He even called and invited her to his Pre-Dance Party, but "as Just Friends." His words exactly.

I had a bunch of 12 and 13 year old boys at my house hanging out. So I got them some pizza and soda. They gobbled up the food. Then just before it was time to go to The Dance one of the boys called his Mom.

"Mom, don't you NEED me to babysit tonight?" pause "Ok, I'll be right home." Well, some kids weren't so excited about The Dance. He beelined it home to probably his first willing babysitting stint.

The rest of the kids piled in the car and we dropped them off at The Dance. We had a good laugh that Middle Child was so excited to go. A couple years ago we could not have foreseen this change in his behavior.

After The Dance he called me to report on the goings on of The Dance.

"I danced with Nine Girls. And a bunch of those dances were slow dances."

"Wow! Did you ask them all?"

"No, I asked seven and two asked me to dance."

"So, who were they? What are their names and do you like them?"

"I danced with J and M and L and S and C and R and W. I don't remember the rest of the girls names."

I guess I better start doing my homework. I'm betting the girls' names that he "Couldn't Remember" were the ones he likes. I gotta go and call his friends, find out who those girls were.

If I was Feeling Lonely

Wednesday after school, our Baby got a phone call. Not from his best friend, he was already here. Or his other best friend, but one of Calvin's best friends growing up. He wanted to come over and play xbox with Baby. I thought "How sweet!" He came over and they got to work in the basement killing bad guys and having fun.

Then about 15 minutes later three girls came over, one of them happened to be one of Calvin's best friends. She is the cutest tomboy. She would always round up the neighborhood for a game of football in her grandpa's backyard. (She confided in me how recently they had been hiding behind some bushes and were throwing little plastic army men onto passing car's windshield.) They were hanging out talking to me and discovered the other friend in the basement. So they went downstairs to play with Baby and friend.

Then two more boys came over and hung out in the basement with everyone else.

Olaf came home and took a phone call. 'Is M here?" he asked me all perplexed.

"Oh yeah, there's a bunch of Calvin's friends in the basement playing with Baby," I nonchalantly replied.

"What? I'm gonna cry. That is so sweet of them to play with him." he replied, stunned that there were teenagers in our house again.

Baby loved the attention. He has always loved Calvin's friends and the attention they give him. He thinks of them as friends, just like anyone his age. It was good for them to play with him. It was nice to have rowdy teenagers in the house again, even tho it's infrequently going to happen. Those kids might keep me from being lonely and missing the teenagers.

Boy Conversations

While waiting for Baby's soccer practice to get over with I was near a group of new 7th grade boys getting ready for football practice.

"We have hot chicks at our school."
"Yeah, you guys have ALL the hot chicks at your school!"
"I told my mom I was gonna be checking out all the hot chicks in the halls and she told me not too. Like she's gonna stop me!"
"I went over to your school before it was over and you do have all the hot chicks!"
"That short one that hangs out with so-so, she digs me."
"You just barely figured that out?"
"If we play football real good we can get all the hot chicks!"

I'm glad these boys have their futures figured out when it comes to girls!

Coaches and Movies

Today I got a call from First Born. He is 13 and a total teenager with a cell phone and everything. He's been going to a weight lifting group in the morning put on by one of his friend's dad. He's enjoyed it and it will help him with tackle football this fall. But I digress. He calls me and tells me he's going to see the new Batman movie today at noon.

"Who are you going with?" as all mother's ask.

"Mumble, mumble, mumble, high school, mumble, mumble."

"So who are you going with?" I ask again, knowing the whole high school is not going to the movie with him, a lowly 8th grader.

"Mumble, high school coach paying my way, mumble."

"So who else is going?" I ask dubiously as bells and red flags are dancing feverishly in my head

"Mumble, Nate, mumble, high school, mumble"

This time I demand, "Who else is going and speak clearly."

"Nate and some kids from the weight lifting class and some others."

"So what is this about the coach paying your way in?" I still demand.

"He's paying for all the kids in the weight class."

I breathe a sigh of relief, almost. "Now, we've talked about inappropriate touching from other adults, right?"

"MOM! Yes, ooooh!"

"I just had to remind you. You need to be careful."

"MOM, I KNOW!"

"All right, you may go to the movie. Have fun!"

I got home just in time to take him to his friend's house for the movie. As he got out of the car I said, "Have fun, and remember, no touching."

"MOM!"

Memories

I recently had a friend ask "Why did 'I Kissed A Girl' get moved down to slot number two on my playlist? Honestly it was technical difficulties. But I had been thinking about my parents and how they probably didn't want to hear that song. I can see my Mom raising her eyebrows and giving the computer that Look that she gave me when she caught me in miniskirts in High School. I can hear my Dad saying "What is wrong with that girl? Didn't we teach her better?"

It did remind me of the time in High School when I left the song by George Michael 'I Want Your Sex' in the tape player (I'm old!) of the station wagon (and sooo cool). My Dad brought it in after him and my Mom had been out and I knew immediately what was wrong. He was carrying the tape and I thought "Crap, I left that tape in the car!" I had never meant for them to find it in the first place. He said "I don't approve of this song." Yeah, I already knew that! "I really think you should throw this tape away." You just don't argue with my Dad when you're the young, irresponsible, misguided teenager. I said "You're right, I'll do that." So, I did what every good teenage girl would do. I hid the tape in my bedroom and was much, much more careful about what music I left laying around.

Oldest Child also likes the song I Kissed A Girl. My husband tried to hide it from him. I'm not sure how he thought that was possible. I have had several conversations with my son about how music does not define who you are or what you do and if it does, then that is a problem. Last winter he told me he erased a song from his ipod. I asked him why and he told me a friend told him it was a bad song. That really irritated me because he should think for himself. Because we live in Utah with all our fellow Mormons I am really stressing to my children that they need to make decisions for themself and to not just follow the religious crowd, they are not always right. I probed a little further to find out the real reason. He finally admitted he didn't like the song. I told him that was a perfectly good reason for deleting a song but he shouldn't let others judge his music. He also then said it was about sex. I laughed out loud! I told him that Rock 'n Roll music is about Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n Roll! That was when we had our first discussion about music. We've had several since then and as long as he is not afraid to share his music with me I am not too worried about him.

Catching Teenitis

Middle Boy, who is almost 11 and has always been my sweetest boy and really still is, is starting to show signs of being infected with the malady Teenitis. I already have one child with full blown Teenitis and Middle Boy seems to somehow have caught is despite our best efforts to quarantine and disinfect First Born. It started occasionally with little fits. The funniest was when I sent him to clean his bathroom for the third time. I was at the top of the stairs and I could hear mumbling from the basement. I thought it was muffled due to the distance and the inability of Middle Boy to talk above a whisper. But that was not the case. He was downstairs cleaning his bathroom again and mocking his mother in a Peanuts style adult voice "Wah waaah wahh wah waaahhh." I laughed so hard. Whenever I bring up his mumbling to others he gets all shy and smiles and I know he loves the attention and the fact that he's not in trouble for mocking me.

This weekend was a little different. I originally thought he was cranky from a sleep over, which is rare, it's usually the other two that take three days to recover, not him. But when the crankiness continued through Sunday and a little on Monday I got worried. I debated taking his temperature but remembered First Born never had fevers associated with Teenitis. I thought about quarantining him but realized that would be more stress than it was worth since that hasn't worked with First Born. I thought about calling the doctor to determine if there was a cure, but I'm pretty sure I would have heard about a cure if there was one available. I really think it would be front page news. In the meantime I am looking forward to more fits and rebellion and independence as his Teenitis takes root. More fights about stuff he used to do without a problem. More mopey days as he deals with his hormones that doctors still haven't figured out how to regulate. I propose we inconvenience doctors with teenagers in their life on a more regular basis so they might realize how much of a breakthrough this cure could be for the whole world!

Cell Phones for Teenagers

We did the unthinkable. We got First Born a cell phone. He is so excited and in the first week sent and received over 4000 texts. I don't know why he doesn't have callouses on those little fingertips. While he thinks he's cool and has pretty cool parents, however fleeting that thought is, we have ulterior motives.

Rule 1: Grades must be kept at B level or higher or the phone is confiscated.
Rule 2: Phone must be plugged in by 10 pm in our bedroom to prevent late night texting or the phone will be confiscated.
Rule 3: First Born must behave or phone will be confiscated.

I let him go in late to school last Friday and in the meantime he missed a quiz in Spanish, one of his harder subjects. I told him to make sure he studied over the weekend and it had to be taken on Monday. He ACTUALLY took the quiz on Monday before he came home. I was shocked! The last time he missed a Friday quiz it took him almost two full weeks to get around to taking the quiz. Despite other parents objections, I LIKE the cell phone and how it twists his arm in the right direction.