Teen Parenting Archives - Page 2 of 2

Here’s the thing about spring break

March 23, 2015 11 Comments

It was about this time last year when I mentioned to our exchange student, Guillermo, that we’d be taking a trip to Argentina next spring and hoped to visit his family.

Ever since I’d left Mike and the kids for a month-long exchange to Buenos Aires, exactly ten years ago, I’ve been itching to go back and experience that very vibrant, exciting part of the world with my family. I think if one could combine New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, and Seattle into one city where everyone switches randomly from speaking Spanish to Italian to German, it would be a little like Buenos Aires.

Well, here it is spring break, 2015, and airline tickets to Argentina have yet to magically materialize.

There are several reasons for this, the biggest being the fact that it’s freaking expensive to fly an entire family to Argentina.

Parenting

Crafts that will make your kids hate you: Repurposed pharmacy bags

March 16, 2015 15 Comments

The other day I realized we were out of brown paper lunch bags for Jack.

Because we’re a family of quasi-hoarders, we had a readily available alternative:

There are downsides, of course, to sending your kid to school looking like he’s hauling a bag of prescriptions. Which means Mike and I spent a few minutes debating whether it would be okay to just cross out the label with a sharpie and put “smootchy” or “kissyface” over the top. We know how much Jack loves the opportunity to share our pet names for him with all his hombres at school.

Nonsense, Parenting, Uncategorized

Orthodontorture actually IS a word

March 13, 2015 11 Comments

When I picked the boys up from the dentist the other day the news was good and then … not so good.

“No cavities,” the hygienist said. Then, pointing at Colin: “I wonder if it’s time for him to see an orthodontist.”

I can answer that, just based on my own powers of observation, and since the kid is still able to (a) chew his own food and (b) doesn’t have any obvious snaggle-tooth issues going on yet.

No, it’s not. Nope-ity. Nope. Nope.

I am not speaking, of course, as a professional. I am quite sure that people go to school for a helluva long time in order to tell me whether it’s time to fit my kid with dental ironworks.

My perspective is that of a survivor.

Parenting

Let’s just talk about that eye roll

February 23, 2015 10 Comments

Oh honey, do me the smallest favor and take a mental snapshot of this moment right now.

You can pull it out later, say, in thirty years or so, and remember when you first heard the words that I’m sure will one day be coming out of your mouth.

Only the tables will be turned, as they say. The shoes will be on the other feet. You’ll think “Hey, I know just who I sound like,” and you’ll realize that the person sitting across from you regards you as not just the dim-bulb-on-the-marquee kind of stupid, but dumber-than-a-sack-of-hammers stupid.

Parenting

Coping When My Kid’s at the Wheel

January 12, 2015 No Comments

I was commiserating with a group of moms recently whose kids are all beginning drivers. It’s a new thing for all of us, but the sensation is familiar. We’re happy to see the end of the mommy chauffer days, sure, but that happy comes with a healthy helping of dread.

It’s taken a while, but I’m learning to cope with the mixture of exultation and anxiety that’s an ongoing theme of parenting. That Oh hooray, he’s starting to crawl sensation, tempered by the oh crap, we’re going to have to babyproof the whole house feeling.

Of course, each new driver has his or her own thing. One woman despaired of her daughter ever agreeing to drive on the freeway, or to push the car above 30 mph.

My son needs to come to grips with the fact that a learner’s permit does not a Dale Earnhardt Jr. make.

Parenting

The Learner’s Permit. Also known as Fifty Hour Glutes

November 7, 2014 No Comments

“We taking the freeway?” Jack asks as I get out from behind the wheel and cross to the passenger side. His schoolmates hoot at him from in front of the building, impressed by his learner’s permit. He struts to the car.

“Not a chance. There’s construction,” and probably will be for the next decade. For the past several months, they’ve been squeezing six lanes into two on the route to Jack’s school. Our normal 20 minutes can take twice as long or more now, depending upon factors I have yet to fathom.

We pull away, and I mouth “SAVE ME” at the kids, pawing the window for effect. They laugh appreciatively. It never gets old. Jack’s polite enough to let me poke fun.

Parenting

Judgmental Jerkwads and conversations about pot

August 18, 2014 No Comments

Jack asked Mike and I our thoughts on marijuana this weekend, I had two initial responses:

(1) I need to tread carefully here, lest one of us ends up sounding as evasive as Bill Clinton, and
(2) Ooh, yay! Another blog topic.

Mike thinks a blog on talking to our teenager about pot has the potential to draw a little ire, and he’s understandably a little anxious about my broadcasting this kind of conversation to the whole, wide world.

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