Being the mom of a teenager.....

So I’ve had another long blogging break.  My life just isn’t all that interesting right now.  Maybe it’s the weather that’s put me in a funk – but there just isn’t anything funny to write about when all you are doing is working, driving home, working some more, sleeping and repeating the same cycle every day.  I’m not complaining about the lack of excitement, believe me I’d rather have a million average days like I’ve had.  But there hasn’t been a lot of blogging inspiration going on. 

Camryn is somewhat out of her get in to everything phase.  At least for the most part.  We still have moments where she backslides, but there isn’t many stories there.  With Cade being older now I do shelter him somewhat from the blog.  He’s at that weird age and I don’t want anything I’ve said here to somehow get back to him in the wicked Jr. High way.  I thought Jay and Charlie were mellowing in their old age because I don’t hear as much screaming as I used to.  I think though that the screaming is now taking place farther away from the house so I’m not hearing it.  Which means no stories to tell. 

I’ve gone back and forth on what I should do.  I really do like writing.  It’s a stress reliever for me.  But do I need to go another direction with the blog?  Should I try to fill up the time with other things in between stories or go weeks at a time with no new post?  Does anyone really even care what I type? (that’s not a fishing for compliments I just figure no one really cares about my specific topics.  They aren’t earth shattering like Pinterest Told Me To or my personal favorite Suburban Strut.  Those are real life changing Blogs right there)  These are all things I’ve been mulling around for a few days.  Then over the last 24 hours I got my inspiration.  Maybe I should start writing about being a mother of a teenager. I’m not talking about how to handle their mood swings and other 7^th grade attitude adjustments.  I’m talking about me.  How I’m handling being a mother of a teen(or at least he will be one in 21 days). I could sum it up in one short sentence by saying – I’m not handling it very well.  But since this is me I will draw it out for several paragraphs…..So for those of you with younger kids listen up!  Learn how not to be. 

I am almost 38 years old.  As of May 12^th (or maybe the 19^th) 2015 I will have been out of school for 20 years.  And while I was not what I consider an overly mean high school girl I did have my moments – like pretty much every girl who’s ever gone to school, but I wasn’t horrible.  I went to a small enough school that there weren’t any clique’s and we had all known each other since birth so that cut down on a lot of problems.  College was a little different because you found friends that were a lot like you so there wasn’t a lot of drama there.  Looking back I was probably part of small clique on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I’d  sit with friends in Karl’s Hall during an extended break and laugh at people.  We also laughed at ourselves plenty so it wasn’t like I was a completely horrible person.  And there were guys there to so it wasn’t like we were just a mean bunch of girls sitting there.  Even though my experiences were mild I still wasn’t sad to leave any of it behind. 

For the last 20 years I’ve been a pretty normal, level headed adult.  Then Cade entered 7^th Grade.  My Mean Girl has re-surfaced with a vengenance.  Actually I think its more mature version of the Mean Girl who is named Mean Perimenopausal Crazy Girl, otherwise known as MPCGirl...or like Jay calls it “when you yell a lot.”  What makes MPCGirl so much worse then Mean Girl is that when I was just the Mean Girl it was because Dayton said my new yellow shorts made my butt look big.  MPCGirl  comes out when Cade has an altercation with a Jr High girl AND I remember Dayton and the big butt, yellow shorts incident.  Really MPCGirl is like a steamroller in more ways than one.

Cade really doesn’t have too many issues with other kids.  I will say he’s got a pretty good self-esteem and he is secure in himself and his quirks.  But we all have our breaking point and Cade had his a few weeks ago.  He wore a new sweatshirt that he had gotten for Christmas to school.  It was from AE and it was a neon color.  The kids started teasing him that it looked gay.  Luckily I was picking him up early for an eye appointment so he wasn’t there all day.  We had a 30 minute drive to the eye doctor and Cade bared his 7^th Grade soul.  And I was pissed.  I read so many blogs of great Christian woman who are so encouraging and Godly and what not.  I am embarrassed to admit this – but I was definitely not one of them that day.  MPCGirl came out in full, full force.  I finally completely lost it and I said some things about this particular little girl that made Cade’s eyes about pop out of his head.  It shocked him enough that he quit being upset.  It was probably mostly because he realized his mom was saying words he’d never heard while hurtling down a two lane road in a black van at 75mph.  ( I find the thought of having these moments in a van make it seem even crazier.  There is just something crazy about a mad mother driving a mini van that makes me laugh)  He couldn’t escape.  I did get control a  few minutes later and said we needed to pray for her because obviously she had some ugly things going on in her life to say such ugly things to other people.  I think I redeemed myself, at least sort of.  Of course later I texted a few teacher friends at school to see what they knew about this little ______!  I also put Jay on the task of putting his eyeballs on this girl to see what we were dealing with.  This girl actually ran on to Jay and Cade one weekend and Jay gave her his teacher stare.  I don’t know if it registered with the girl or not, but she’s left Cade alone since then. 
MPCGirl got tucked away for a few weeks and things seemed to be fine.  Then she made an appearance last night.  For no reason really.  I think she thought she had to live up to the Crazy in her name. Cade said that the girls in his class were wearing that zig-zag print.  I said you mean Chevron?  He said yes, they’ve all been wearing Chevron lately.  I like Chevron, I still own it, I still wear it, I decorated Camryn’s room with it.  But something snapped last night when he said that.  I said “well if they are wearing Chevron they must not read the same fashion blogs I do because Chevron went out awhile ago.  The next time they tell you something you are wearing looks gay you tell them your mom says Chevron is so over!!!”  Cade looked so confused.  He had no idea what just happened.  Jay’s back was to me so I have no idea if any of our conversation registered with him.  I think I could’ve been classified as temporarily insane for about 30 seconds.  Which leads me in to a sub story going on yesterday…. 
When I dropped Camryn off yesterday Stacy told me that she had watched a 14 month old girl the day before for about an hour.  Camryn spent the whole time trying to scare this baby.  She found pictures of volcanoes and wolves to show the baby hoping she would scare it.  Stacy was laughing about it.  I hope she was laughing because she raised 8 kids and knows Camryn will grow out of it.  I was disturbed.  I called Jay and told him.  He was also disturbed.  What kind of 3 year old purposely scares a baby?  I worried about what kind of mean girl we were raising.  When I asked Camryn about it this morning she said that she wanted to scare the baby because the baby had touched something on the iPad and messed up her game.  I really wasn’t sure if this made me feel better or not.  I went from worrying about her being mean to wondering about a three year old feeling the need to retaliate.  I wasn’t going to blog about that because I was afraid someday people would say “I knew she had sociopathic tendencies from an early age.” Or “what kind of genetics did that girl come from.”     

When I told Tera, a work friend, about the baby scaring yesterday and then how I realized I am a mean girl today we did have a good laugh over it all.  Tera made some valid points.  She said that Cade telling some girls their clothes were out of style according to a fashion blog would not help his cause any.  MPCGirl had not thought that part out fully.  Tera also said her mom used to say “kill them with kindness” but the Shepherd way of hurtling fashion insults and showing scary pictures might also work.  Actually I probably should say it’s more the Moore/Ewing/Fowler way because the mean girl is definitely coming down my side of the family tree. Jay and Cade are still trying to figure out what Chevron looks like.    

So the moral of the post is everyone is quick to point out when you have a baby to cherish it because it goes fast....No one ever told me that having a child in Jr High/High School means your thoughts and feelings revert back to that time period and it's 1,000,000X worse when your child is going through it. 

 

Super Bowl Highlights

As most of you can tell by this blog, I have a real take it or leave it attitude about sports.  The majority of it is a leave it attitude, but I usually do make an effort to watch the Super Bowl.  Last night we had a church party.  This past fall we installed a huge TV screen in our sanctuary so we were able to watch it in there.  We also ate pizza and Camryn ran around and jumped off the stage while were watching the big screen.  There are some 1700's era Pilgrims rolling over in their graves about now.  There are some things that happened last night that will go down in my mind as the biggest memories from Super Bowl 49.  And none of them had anything to do with the last play that cost the Seahawks the win.

1.  The Fiat commercial.  That was the one with the little blue pill.  There is nothing like every head in our church sanctuary watching that little blue pill bounce all over the place until it ended up in the car's gas tank.  It was completely silent in the church, except for the snickering of one older gentlemen.  I happened to be coming out of the bathroom so I got to watch the back of every head bounce up and down along with the pill.

2.  At the beginning of the game we were talking about Tom Brady and wondered how old he was.  Jay said he was in college at the same time we were so he figured he was around our age - 36, 37ish.  I was surprised he was that old.  People our age don't need to be playing football!!!   Cade was having some teenage moments last night so his parents were the dumbest things in the world.  Jay had a little talk with him by the snacks.  While they were gone one of those info screens popped up and had some facts about Tom Brady.  He's 37.  When Jay got back I told him that Tom Brady was 37 so we were all the same age.  Cade, with his teenage angst, said "Look at Tom Brady....(head swivels back and forth between Jay and I) and then look at you people."  Jay missed it but I had to look away because I was laughing.  Later I told Cade I was hurt that he didn't think I looked like Tom Brady.  He said "well I just meant I can't imagine you and dad playing football."  Yeah right!!!