I hope you enjoy this month’s contribution to Hallmark’s “Life Is A Special Occasion” campaign! (Perhaps you should grab a cup of hot cider, and possibly a sedative. This post is about puberty.) I have found that I mentally divvy up the lives of both of my boys into neat little “eras”. It’s easier for me to keep the details of their respective childhood experiences straight if I can associate what I’m trying to remember with the circumstances of a specific period of time. Lucky for my tired brain, they have always been vastly different people and each of them have a unique set of eras, with only two exceptions.…
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The Knowing Is One Thing; The Realization Is Another.
I had the extreme good fortune of being able to spend some quality time alone with Jim this weekend. Much of Saturday was spent just taking care of things around the house, and in the evening we went out for dinner and a movie. I think it was over steaks at Texas Roadhouse when Jim said, “You realize, don’t you, that in a year it will be like this almost all the time…just us?” And while I knew that already–we’ve talked about it for years, how we’d be in our mid-forties when the kids stopped living at home full time–at that moment the realization truly hit me like a ton…
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DJ J, Revisited
It’s interesting how life works. While contemplating how my life has taken some pretty cool twists and turns over the past couple of years, I have discovered that often we end up doing things we never set out to do, ever. These new activities, pastimes, or even career changes come in the form of a natural progression, sometimes when you least expect it and often before you realize it. As it turns out, I’m not the only one in our house experiencing this sort of thing. I have written before about how J, my 17-year-old guitar-loving son who has always had a wide range of musical interests thanks to his…
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One Score, Or Twenty Years Ago…
This kid was born. Today is D’s twentieth birthday. It was alarming when I realized last night as I was wide awake at midnight–two hours after I had gone to bed–that I can no longer say I have two teenaged sons. It’s a bizarre feeling. Of course, you can’t slow time down and this is just the thing that tends to happen. Today is a little bittersweet for us since D is in New Mexico, miles and miles away from here. In fact, in many ways it doesn’t seem like his birthday at all because I’m not making a cake (that would be weird–and mean!) and naturally there are no…
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Old Friends
I was on the phone with D the other day when he asked me to go to our local Big Box Toy Store to pick up a specific Star Wars toy that would be part of a thank you gift for his fraternity “dad” (it was meant to be funny). I was happy to do it: the combination of getting out of the house and away from my LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER to-do list and doing a small favor for him–when he typically doesn’t ask for much at all–made this kind of errand a pleasure rather than a chore. Yesterday I headed out to the store and as I drove…
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The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree
It seems like only yesterday that I was waxing poetic about sending D off to college, and yet in two weeks he will finish his sophomore year. He is very, very happy at his school–which is a great relief to us, knowing that he made the right selection–and it’s been an exciting time for him. At the beginning of this semester, he decided to do something he claimed at the beginning of freshman year he had absolutely zero interest in doing: pledge a fraternity. We were relieved that he chose a fraternity that has a strict no secrets, no hazing policy, and it’s one whose members include the majority of…
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Teen Interpretation Gone Wrong
Seventeen-year-old J came home from his after school job and found me upstairs in my room, putting away laundry*. I asked him about school and work and then we talked about family plans for the weekend. He mentioned that his girlfriend wanted to know if he was busy tonight. I said, “I don’t know. Are you? All I need for you to do tonight is put away your laundry.” He said, “Okay, I’ll find out if she wants to hang out and…” His text notification went off and he looked at his phone. “Yep, she wants to hang out. So I guess I’m going to put away my laundry, make…
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Mother Knows Best
Let me preface my story by saying that of course I don’t enjoy when my children–or any of my loved ones, for that matter–get hurt. I just want that to be clear because I don’t want my readers to get the impression that my smug satisfaction with the events I am about to retell have anything to do with my child’s pain and suffering. Now, on with the story. I came home last night after teaching my spin class and went into the kitchen after passing through the family room and saying hello to J, who was sitting in the chair watching television. Jim was in the kitchen, and in…
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Inside The Life Of A Teenager
We don’t see a whole lot of J these days. Like many teenagers, his waking hours are full of commitments that keep him out of the house (and when he’s home, out of the family room), starting very early in the morning. On weekdays, he gets up around 5:30 a.m. to shower. He’s outside starting his car by 6:30. He picks up his best friend on his way to school. High school begins at 7:20. High school ends at 2:25. He drops his best friend off at home before heading straight for work. He works from about 3:00 until 5:30 each weekday (except for what he calls “No Work Wednesdays!”).…
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The Lesson I Never Thought I’d Have To Teach My Son
It never occurred to me in a million years that I’d have to deal with this issue. Not with MY kid. Everything started out innocently enough: he was invited to a big party. The house was practically full of his friends, all his age. It was just your typical, run-of-the-mill birthday party. The mood was festive but not over the top; all of the party attendees were on their best behavior. Well, they were on their best behavior at first, until the stimulants made their appearance, thanks to one of the guests. In fact, that guest was a little overzealous about it and in an instant, almost everything ended up…