This week just keeps on giving.
Kid 2: May I got to the basketball game at school tonight? My room is clean, my bathroom is clean, and all my homework is done.
Me: Of course, honey.
Later on, after a day of work, Gordon is sitting on the bed with me in the bedroom. He is sorting through some action figures. I am sorting through my glorious stash of yarn. The stress of the release and other stuff finally got to me. I am falling asleep and cooking is the last thing on my mind. But I do know that we have to go to Walmart to buy shampoo and hair supplies, because Kid 2 is in a play, and she needs a Marilyn Monroe hair. I need Paul Mitchell hairspray and wet-set curlers for it, because she fried her hair by straightening and it won’t take the heat.
Gordon seems really comfortable, so I know I’ll have to hatch a plan to get him out of the house. We both have been sticking to our diet very closely, me out of necessity and Gordon out of solidarity. Despite spending Thanksgiving with the family, we only gained a pound each. And there are certain things that we haven’t had in a while. Like fried chicken.
Me: Honey, can we go to Walmart?
Gordon: evil eye.
Me: You could get fried chicken.
Gordon: That will work.
We collect Kid 1 and off we go to Walmart. Three hundred dollars later, armed with groceries, hair supplies and things we didn’t know we needed until we saw them in Walmart (which is why I don’t go there usually), we exit and go to get chicken. I see Gordon buying fried okra, which is my Achilles heel, and I tell him that I will not be having any fried chicken or fried okra, so he might as well get something else for himself… I check my cellphone, which has been set on vibrate for some reason, and I see nine messages from Kid 2. Nine.
I dial the number.
Me: What’s wrong?
Kid 2: COME GET ME!
Me: What’s wrong?
Kid 2: It’s terrible, I can’t tell you, please, please, please come pick me up.
Click.
We jump back in the car. Gordon is driving like a maniac. Kid 1 is frantically texting Kid 2, but Kid 2 isn’t replying. I’m freaking out.
This is what Kid 2 looks like. This is her outfit for the play, where she is playing a 60′s model. Contrary to her appearance, Kid 2 is fourteen years old, which is evident from this picture, taken immediately after the first one.
We exist in a state of constant vigilance and the first thing that goes through my mind is she got in a fight or has been assaulted. I’m grimly determined to not lose it. Gordon is equally grimly weaving in and out fo traffic with surgical precision.
Gordon: Anything?
Kid 1: No.
Gordon: Do we need police, do we need hospital?
Kid 1: She won’t tell me.
We come to a light which is known to malfunction. It’s supposed to adjust depending on the traffic flow and it we’re making a left turn and the light is not recognizing we are there. Minutes slide by. We are stuck. The light cycles three times and nothing. The traffic ebbs.
Kid 1: She is crying.
Gordon runs the red light.
We speed to the middle school. I see her standing here. I open the door.
Me: Are you hurt?
Her: This guy asked me for naked pictures and I told him no, and I know his girlfriend, and she asked me if he asked me and I showed her the text and these other girls were mean to me and they said I was trying to break them up on purpose and ….
Me: ARE YOU HURT?
Her: No.
Me: ARGH. Why didn’t you tell us that it was just some drama?
Her: I am upset!
Kid 1: What is wrong with you? We thought something bad happened!
Her: Something bad did happen!
Me: We thought you got assaulted.
Kid 2: Mooom, if I got assaulted, I would tell you right away!
Gordon in his super patient voice: Get in the car.
We drove home. I ate the entire box of fried okra and drank half a bottle of cheap wine. We watched a cheesy werewolf movie, that missed a chance to have a good ending and then I watched an episode of Fringe and then passed out. This morning, not surprisingly, my stomach hurts and Gordon is tired. Kid 1 and Kid 2 are fresh as daisies.
So. Your turn for teenage grey hair story.
I read this to my mother and she laugh for a good 5 mins. After she had finished her laughing fit I asked if I ever did anything like that. She started laughing again and said “honey, raising you was never had a dull moment.” If you have a daughter you’re probably going to have some bit of drama in teenage years. Mom said to keep strong and remember to laugh.
Haha. It’s not too bad as long as she doesn’t sext any photos. Unfortunately, it gets worse. My cousins are all in the freshman and sophomore years of college (you’d think you’d be done by then). Then comes the drunken frat parties, hookah bars, and well you know. Good luck!
The stories are limitless, but here are a couple:
1. called by ski patrol, they say “parent of oldest son, go immediately and directly to hospital”. Drive like maniac to hospital which will not talk to me on phone- kid and I have different last names, no hipaa release. Park illegally, sprint into ER, stammer at triage nurse, am presented with the WALLET of my child (who is right then on his snowboard on the mountain) – a friend of his was carrying it, smacked his head and tweaked his knee, got taken to hospital and ski patrol contacted me. So guess who wound up calling mother of friend – me.
2. second son asks if he and GF can have “serious conversation” with me. Say yes. They sit on the couch across from me, holding hands, 14 (him) & 16 (her), and ask me how I feel about babies. While I stare at them trying to formulate words, a slap-fight begins about how she said I would freak out and he said I wouldn’t. Can’t get word in edgeways. 10 minutes later, Himself wanders in and says “so are we babysitting or what?” Turns out they volunteered to babysit for her big sister once a week and want to do it at our house.
3. School calls: oldest and youngest sons missing, are they sick? Call boys, no answer. Call home, no answer. Call Himself, no answer. Call my parents, no answer. Call neighbors, no answer. Call middle son, no answer. Call cops, they don’t have my kids. Call hospital, they don’t have my kids. Get in car, start driving like fiend, calling and texting at every stop. Pull into driveway, phone rings from mystery number – is middle son at a pay phone: “hey, mom! we’re having unscheduled adventure with uncle B – will you call us in sick please?”
dear God,
Those are great stories. Number 2 would have given me a heart attack and number three would have involved me physically assaulting Uncle B. How can me be so stupid.
L. Blanchard recently posted..Book Review: Steel’s Edge by Ilona Andrews
and by “me” I meant to type “men”
oh the irony.
L. Blanchard recently posted..Book Review: Steel’s Edge by Ilona Andrews
Oh. My. – -
Oy. I don’t know how you do it. I’m glad everyone is okay.
No kids myself, but I had agreed to let a friend’s 16 year old daughter stay at my place when she was out of town. The girl had just entered a large public school and was just starting to fall in on the fringes of the hard core crowd (gang bangers, drug users, we’re talking a large urban high school). She had been IMing her friends when she started freaking out, “Omigod, he just threatened to kill me. What do I do? He’s going to get me tomorrow!” So I made her let me look at the message history. She had started the trash talking with a boy she knew, gangster but not hard core, and his words had been ambiguous — he told her she’d been starting stuff at school with a lot of people and should watch her back, because she shouldn’t expect that her actions would not come back on her. She wanted to call the cops and get the boy arrested, but really there was nothing in the message that could legally be construed a threat and it felt more like trash talk than a genuine threat.
So, she jumped on the phone and started calling around to another boy she knew, trying to convince him to kill this guy before he got to her. I was like, “Oh hell, no you don’t,” and had her put me on the phone with her friend. I identified who I was and told him that the girl was freaking out. I could tell this kid was the real deal, so I made a point of being neutrally respectful and straightforward with him, telling him my sense was that the other guy had been trash talking her, but I needed to know if he thought she really was in danger since I responsible for her safety and had to send her to school the next day. He sounded super exasperated and told me that the boy in question wasn’t going to come after her, stating in blunt terms she wouldn’t be worth the time or consequences.
I let her finish the conversation with the boy (and she was crushed that he wouldn’t act on her behalf), and then we talked about how she had started the problem in the first place and then escalated it. I reiterated that she couldn’t just say and do whatever came to her mind and not expect that there be consequences, many of which she wouldn’t like and wasn’t equipped to handle. I also explained that it was not ok to casually ask someone to take out someone else — it was a heavy request, illegal, would obligate her to someone she didn’t want to owe, and had long term consequences for her soul and her life. Buy the end of the conversation, she had calmed down and we set up a strategy for what she should do the next day if she ran into this boy and he acted threatening to her.
She was fine the next day, no threats or actions taken. But that was 2 crazy hours. I told her mom when she got back, but she was preoccupied with her new boyfriend and didn’t follow up. Ultimately, the girl ran away, ended up turning tricks in Las Vegas, got swept up in a FBI raid on a group that transported girls across state lines, was put into a shelter for girls forced in to the sex trade and eventually enrolled into a fashion school.
Your kids may have lousy communication and drive you crazy, but you have a good relationship full of trust and love. You also instilled good sense into them, even if they get dramatic every now and then. I am very glad that you are so blessed.
Scary, yes. But what a gift that you have a relationship with your girls that they would actually call you in such a situation. That you are even aware of the drama, and that she would trust you two enough to call… I am pretty sure I would not have done that with my parents.
No horror teenage stories yet. My only son is 7 and we homeschool! I think this helps in the drama factor until all his cousins come over!
OMG… Andrew, keep the shotgun loaded. Ilona, how handy are you with those knitting needles? The last time i saw kid 2 (at Powell’s in Beaverton), she was just a skinny little kid. And now she’s a Gorgeous young woman. If I was 40 yrs younger, it’d be me with a knitting needle halfway up my nose or staring down the barrel of a 12 ga. shotgun and stammering “No Ma’am, No Sir… I assure you my intentions are completely honorable”. And of course I’d be lying. Lol ! Boys are Bad! I know. I was one. That’s the reason my Daughter’s boyfriend was met by a Machete wielding, steely eyed Dad on his first visit to our house! Good Luck, my friends… You’re gonna need it!
Lonnie, aka. GreatNorthernTroll
My daughter is nearly seventeen and admittedly things haven’t been that bad but there was an incident which happened last year, my kid was invited to a party so a friend of hers came over and off they went to the party. I get a phone call from my kid a couple of hours later can we stay here? I say not a great idea cos friend mum expects her to stay with us, kid grumbles says goodbye and THINKS she hung up the phone, she didn’t. So I heard some very interesting things going on, the most alarming was the alcohol being consumed. I finally got my kid back on the phone and the first thing I said to her was “You need to learn to hang up the phone properly, get your stuff together I’m coming to get you” *sigh* Sat them both down and explained what was so very wrong with what they did, grounded my kid and spoke to friends parents.That was the first and last incident concerning alcohol, thank god! I laugh about it now but at the time I didn’t think it was at all amusing, neither did my husband.
I adore okra but I’ve never seen a recipe for fried okra — any special spices or anything? Recipe maybe?
Oh my goodness! I have a 13 year old daughter and, after raising a son who is now an adult and who is still giving me grey hairs, I have for some time been dreading my daughter’s teenaged years. God help us all get through with our sanity intact and our girls healthy, happy, and whole.
**I forgot to write pass the fried okra please..and the fried chicken…and some fried mushrooms! Might as well take that with a side of gravy and tators too ’cause I have a feeling we’re gonna need the comfort food.
I tell my offspring that mothers gain weight so that they out-mass said off-spring and can SIT on them.
Whoooooaaaaaaa nellie . . . That’s rough. I’d be giving lectures about “inappropriate” melodrama & boys er girls who cried wolf . . . but you are still raising your girls right! [I was very quiet & shy as a teen (in the 80s, ouch!) so this sort of stuff didn't happen: I mostly covered for my much older brothers!] I wondered though – giving you & G. write / live fantasy, do you ever fantasise about working in a nice quiet accountants’ office or lorry-driving? lmfao . . .
Whoooooaaaaaaa . . . That’s rough. I’d be giving lectures about “inappropriate” melodrama & boys er girls who cried wolf . . . but you are still raising your girls right! [I was very quiet & shy as a teen (in the 80s, ouch!) so this sort of stuff didn't happen: I mostly covered for my much older brothers!] I wondered though – giving you & G. write / live fantasy, do you ever fantasise about working in a nice quiet accountants’ office or lorry-driving? lmfao . . .
erk apols for duplication!
I have a teenager, his drama tends to run around the “I must gave this game!” or “I must be at this function.” vein. The most frustrating thing about him is that he has a tendency to tell you whatever you want to hear, and then do whatever he wants. It’s frustrating. But not a heart-in-your-throat type thing.
Those would originate with my younger kids. I have twins. They get into everything. No, really. More than any of the others ever have on their own. (I have 5.) I feel that I’ve started aging much more rapidly since they were born. I don’t know what I’ll do when the girl-child is a teen.
I do have recurring nightmares about it though. o.O
“gave” = “have”
A long time ago, when my son, now 32 (who proudly takes responsibility for 95% of my grey hairs) was a teenager I saw this sign that read:
Parents of teenagers understand why animals’ eat their young!
Nowadays with all the sexuality the kids see on video games, TV’s and movies – add in the cell phones with the cameras and everything goes downhill from there. Last year in a town close to us, the middle school kids decided to take pictures of their anatomy and send them to each other making for one helluva mess for the school which ultimately had to deal with this problem. This was a major issue which most of the parents denied responsibility-but who gave them the means with the smart phones and didn’t check to see what their kids were doing with them. I wouldn’t want to go through those teenage years again in this age of electronics! GOOD LUCK!
Lastly, although I haven’t read The Edge novels, I am chomping at the bit for the new Kate Daniels and love Clean Sweep. Thank you ever so much!
P.S.- I am much envious of the yarn stash.
When I was 16, the second month of my driving alone I got (deservedly) a speeding ticket. As this was going on my record and there was a fine to pay, I had to tell my parents. I told my father I needed to talk to him alone (thinking he would be the easier to deal with). He responded by taking me out to lunch (?!), ordered a stiff drink (???!!!) and asked me what I wanted to tell him. When I told him about the speeding ticket, he smiled, told me he would pay the ticket and we had a great lunch. My punishment was to drive the speed limit (!!???). Later he told me that he thought I was going to tell him I was pregnant. He was so relieved that he wasn’t in the mood to punish me! We waited several years before we told my mom.
SEXTING was a viral plague!!. A few years ago I caught my then youngest daughter who was 14 at the time sending her boyfriend sexy but not nekkid pictures. Her excuse was “all the girls did it” and it wasnt anything cause they “loved” each other. She, her phone and the boyfriend’s texts asking for the pics and the messages back and forth about them were driven to the boyfriend’s house to have a talk with him and his parents. (thankfully he never shared them with anyone). After a LONG discussion about their BAD CHOICES, they lost their cell phones for an extended period of time and were grounded each for a month. They did stay togther and still date now 7 years later but it was a rocky beginning.
In high school, eldest daughter had a hard time with bullies. She had a circle of friends but it was not the “popular” crowd. That group picked her on her mercilessly about her height and chest size. The girl was blessed with both –6ft by 13yrs old and a 36DD. She was taught to keep her mouth shut and dont engage with girls acting like a$$holes. Just in case she was taught how to defend herself… but was given the instructions: always have witnesses and you can defend yourself but cant throw the first punch. All it took was one nimwit trying to beat eldest up because she ignored the bullying. Eldest had witnesses and protected herself. Witnesses told the principle and police about the bullying and then the attack with eldest protecting herself. Once conscious, the other kid was arrested for assault and battery. They left her alone after that.
I was hell on wheels in my teenage years. My sister warned the girls not to even TRY to get around me,,I had been there/done that and would always catch them, and then it would be ugly… I was a tough mom. I had to know where they were and who they were with at all times. The computer was in the living room and if they minimized a screen or shut it down as I went by they lost priviledges. I had access to their myspace accounts. (no facebook back then)Until they were 16, if they were going to a “party” I walked them to the house and met the parents if I didnt know them. (Unsupervised parties were forbidden.) They had a curfew on weekends of 11pm until they were 18. Boys had to come to the door to get them for a date to be “met”. I was called the gestapo mom.
But all the kids loved coming to our house, It was THE hangout on weekend nites and around the pool in the summer. Weekends were filled with sleepovers with several each of the girls’ friends. The kids knew I was tough but they also knew they could talk to me about anything and I wouldnt judge them. I was always honest with them no matter what questions they asked. I helped mediate with their parent/parents if they were afraid to talk to them. I think my girls turned out OK. Eldest is out of college with a good job and youngest is a junior on the Dean’s List. They were never arrested, became a teenage mother which is SO hard, or did drugs. After seeing how a couple of their friends have turned out– they have said they are glad I was tough on them.
Hi, okay when she said that some guy wanted to get naked pic of her (warning sign!!!) and then girls were being mean to her because she showed his request to his girlfriend — I hope you don’t dismiss it out of hand as Just Drama. I don’t know if you have heard about Amanda Todd, but I watch a You Tube series called Teens React To (so awesome!) and they did a segment the Amanda Todd story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF6cmddWOgU
which is how I found out about it and I just cried SO MUCH when I found out. But Mean Girls and cyber stexting/stalking and bullying are really something that can lead to people dying. Amanda Todd killed herself about a month after posting this really poignant and utterly sad little self video. This just happened in October, and I didn’t know a thing about until TRT and then I saw a video of her four hours before she killed herself and she looks So Normal.
LOL
Each post has around 40 comments (give or take) but when crazy/obnoxious teenager stories are asked for 100+ comments! My mom coined a word the other day: teenrager. I think it fits
- By: A late pre-twenty.
When I was sixteen I got into a car accident, it was two weeks after getting my license and I was scared out of my mind that the police were never going to let me drive again. It went like this “Dad! I hit someone on the way home from practice. I can hear the sirens, can you please come get me? I have no idea what to do.”
I completely left out where I was, that I had not in fact hit anyone, but had just mangled my fender and that everyone was OK.
He found me, but I can only imagine the hell I put him through, retracing the route home from soccer practice.
I remember teenage drama. My kids are 11 and 10, so I’m getting there. It doesn’t exactly help the drama that your daughter is absolutely gorgeous, I’m sure. I wish you the best of luck, and a splurge for one night won’t kill the entire losing weight thing. That’s why so many diets have cheat days.
I’d have eaten the chicken, not the okra. But your stories make me look forward to the teenage years. Just Can’t. Wait.
Diana Pharaoh Francis recently posted..Happy Happy Joy Joy!!!
I’m going to have to come down with the others who have encouraged not to ignore this incident. While your daughter was not physically assaulted, she was verbally & emotionally assaulted; first with the request for pictures and then by the other girls. This boy who feels that it is all right for him to approach girls he isn’t even in a relationship for naked pictures need intervention RIGHT NOW. This is not horny 14 year old boy behavior, this is predator in the making behavior. The school needs to be informed both that the request took place and that many of the girls did not feel it was inappropriate behavior on his part. Your daughter’s response, while alarming to you, was what you have probablely told to do – if she is in a situation she can’t handle or feels unsafe, call someone to get her out. Good job on your part that she did so.
I’m sorry for you, but your kids stories are always intriguing!
Didn’t like Tangled very much, but for me Yuuko was xxxHolic’s best character ♥ Are you CLAMP readers, other than Inuyasha’s?
I cosplayed as Zashiki Warashi some years ago, in a group of almost 50 people, from all of CLAMP’s series: it was a lot of fun!