Here Come the Teen Years

In just a few short months, I will be the mother of a teenager.  I can honestly say that in all the fantasies of parenthood I had prior to giving birth, I never once pictured myself as the mother of a teenager.  Don't get me wrong.  Jared is a fantastic kid who gives us little trouble (knock on wood),  but there are times he completely exasperates me.  He now knows everything and I know nothing.  He pushes limits and will ask the same thing over and over and over again.  Oh, and you know that kid who would forget his head if it wasn't attached?  Yeah, that's him.  He has forgotten his jacket at the park, left the lunch he made himself sitting on the kitchen counter, and somehow lost an entire P.E. uniform.  Once, he even left his iPod on the bus.  That would have been a great learning experience had the bus driver not found it and returned it to him the next day. 

Last night he served up another reminder that life with a soon-to-be teenager doesn't quite match the picture of parenthood my younger self had imagined.

"Can I have a Thin Mint?"  I overheard Jared ask his dad.  Dan was in the kitchen fixing dinner and I was in the adjoining family room, staring morosely at my writer's notebook as I searched for inspiration that was nowhere to be found for today's post.

My husband answered, "Sure, why not," as I was yelling, "Nooo!" from the family room.  Cookies aren't appetizers!

The funny thing was, I was pretty certain I had answered that very same question just fifteen minutes earlier.  He must have forgotten.

"Do you have any homework you need to do?" my husband asked him.  Yeah, it probably would have been better if we had asked that question sometime before 6:00 p.m. on Sunday.

"Ummm . . . I have to find an electronic source for a persuasive thingy," Jared informed us.

Huh?

"Is that what the directions say?  'The persuasive thingy'?" my husband wanted to know.  "I wish teachers would give more specific directions."

"Yeah," I said.  "Teachers suck."

"Let the record show that I did not say that,"  Dan quickly clarified.

"Yeah,  you did!" my son exclaimed.  Sometimes that memory lapse thing works to my advantage.

Knock, knock, knock.  Oh, good, another wannabe teenager at my door.

"Can I play outside?" Jared asked.  Clearly, he had already forgotten about the homework he was just telling us about.  Or, hoped we had.

"No, you have to find an electronic source for that persuasive thingy," I helpfully reminded him. 

"So, I can tell Robbie I'll be out in five minutes?" he asked.

Yep, I can tell these teen years are going to be fun.  But ready or not (and I'm pretty sure I'm not), here they come.