Minions

I love to joke about being a terrible tyrant rather than a mother. It's big fun to tease the kids that they are merely minions here to serve me. I even give them titles and areas over which they are responsible.

TrashRemoverMan and LaundryLady live at my house and they live to serve me.

Mwahahahahahahha!

Twang

My heartstrings have been plucked quite mightily, by fate, time, frivolity and reality. I faced this the other day- a magical person who had once been a tiny terror (but still terrific), a mini monarch; a toddler tyrant. Now, this person is more than magical- majestic, tremendous, exhilarating and WAY TOO BIG!




TallBoy pronounced that she looked like a "Wampire" (whiny vampire) and thus needed to be "twanged" with arrows (through the heart, of course) to re-deadify her. He proceeded to walk around proclaiming "twang" at her all evening, with much giggling and sighing, depending on her mood.

Twang, indeed.

All Kidding Aside

I don't have kids anymore, I have teenagers!

My lovely girl turns 13 today. I am so tremendously proud of everything she is, all that she wants to be, and every possibility she entertains for herself. She is a fun, cool, silly, wacky, wonderful, ever-changing and always challenging person.

I adore my beautiful girl and hope that she gets everything she wants, needs and deserves- today, tomorrow and always.

The Story of The Dude (Early Years)

For a while, I went to gaming with my dad because I was bored. However, it didn't take long before I wanted to go. While the guys there were weird and geeky, they talked to me. They treated me like a real person with feelings. They didn't completely shun me because I am not quite pretty. There were no comments about being thick or heavy. I was just as real as they were.

I know a lot of them talked to me and hung out with me initially as a favor to my dad. I know I wasn't really easy to get along with or very nice (essentially due to incessant teasing & bullying by people my own age). I know I was a bit jaded and cynical, and maybe a little b*tchy. But I did develop friendships and was starting to feel like I had something that "fit me".

I did not hang out with or interact with the Dude much at first. When I did, I was not impressed. He seemed like an argumentative know-it-all. I spent most of my time with some other guys doing really dumb, innocent stuff like delivering newspapers and wandering around town after school.

I was starting to find a place where I felt comfortable when my mom announced we (our family was my mom, me, my two brothers, and a brand new stepdad at this point) were moving to Iowa with her new husband. He was taking an associate (or maybe assistant) professor position with Iowa State University, and mom was going back to college there.

I was not thrilled with this idea at all. I had finally made FRIENDS and had something I liked doing, and I had to leave it. I fully admit I threw the world's biggest angstiest nastiest tantrum ever over this turn of events. It didn't change that we moved to Iowa.

Iowa stunk.

I was going into 8th grade in a small town where everyone knew everyone else and already had friendships and allegiances developed. I moved in, and tried to make friends with the next door neighbor girl- a shy, quiet girl with a small social circle. When school started, she faded into the woodwork like she always did, and I was left to the vultures. I was pretty much ignored, and I spent the year trying too hard to impress people that just didn't care.

I'll admit I was caught up in appearances and did everything I could to "look cool". While all my 8th grade shenanigans were going on, my mom announced that she was pregnant.

It did not take long for me to figure out that my mom, who was hip deep in school, and my step-dad, who was doing lots of cruddy work for nearly no pay, would be very busy and a baby would only make it worse. I was going to be/had just become a teenager and had not found a lot of activities or things to keep me busy. I was in a town with no friends, nothing I wanted to be involved in and no definite future- and my mom was going to have a baby.

I did not like this situation at all and what I felt it meant for me. I was headed to high school soon, with no friends and no way to do anything I might enjoy. I started to come up with a plan.

The Myth of Teenagers

There's a popular myth (or urban legend) out there in society that the moment your child turns 13, they become a member of an alien species known as Teen.

Apparently members of the Teen species are rude, insolent, smelly, disobedient, defiant and totally spiteful to their immediate family members as a matter of course. That the Teen species is allowed to full maturation is some sort of heroic effort on the families' parts and is worthy of medals and so on.

I have heard countless tales of how Teens have caused stress, financial hardship, family dissonance, grey hair, hurt feelings and even visits from the legal authorities.

I don't doubt the validity of the stories at all. I doubt the assumption or "pack mentality" that seems to go with Teens, implying that total "DEVO-lution" is inevitable and there is nothing to be done except to grit teeth and hope for the best.

I'm here to bust that myth right open.

Teens are not so dang bad. I honestly don't know a single one that I would characterize as a "bad kid". I do know of one or two who are dealing with bad life choices, in conjunction with parents that don't understand, like or enjoy them.

I think that's the key. I think it's important to like your kid for the people they are, and not who you want them to be.

I LIKE mine. He's smart, funny, independent, thoughtful, compassionate, obsessive, responsible and yes, at times, REALLY annoying. But he is a truly cool guy.

I don't do as many things with him as I did when he was little. Some of that is due to his really INDEPENDENT streak, and some is due to interests. He likes activities that until recently had no appeal to me.

I believe in "active parenting" (if that's a term) so I recognized that I was shortchanging TallBoy and set out to at least TRY his favorite activities.

I was wildly successful at headbanging- I have had lots of practice. However, a headache and bad hair resulted, so I don't do it a lot. He gets his love of reading from me, so trying that was no problem- except reading is fairly solitary and it didn't really add to our shared experiences. I tried Airsoft, but I really, really, really hate guns (even pretend ones) so that did not go well at all. I love basketball, but I am completely uncoordinated (dancing is not the only gross motor skill I lack) and so while it was fun, it was humiliating. And so on- I tried lots of his favorite things, and for the most part, I either had fun but won't do it again or hated it with a passion.

Until painting miniatures. I totally get why he spends so much time with his little metal guys. I do. They are very much like scrapbooking or cards- no right way or wrong way to do it. There's a lot of color choices in painting metal figures- and while I am not a trendy or fabulous scrapper/card maker, I have a good eye for color. So it totally translated to painting. Color is totally personal. So is style. Each figure I painted had it's own character and moments where I was equally frustrated and happy.

And now I have an activity I can sit and do with him, quietly- not invading his space, but being with him. Being there; available. He enjoys painting with me, and so I continue to paint (probably taking longer than I need to on my last two guys in order to spend time with him) and enjoy a new found hobby as well as the fun guy that is TallBoy.

He is also an avid cook, and loves spending time learning new recipes in the kitchen with me. He can make spaghetti, mac & cheese, eggs, bacon, grilled cheese, french toast, hamburger helper, cheeseburger soup and of course, biscuits and three different kinds of cookies. We're working on bread- bread is a process, though. I tend to use the recipe as a guide but work by smell and texture. It's been interesting teaching "texture" to him. But he listens and likes the adventure, so I keep at it.

I love being his mom. I love having a hand in helping him learn who he is, what works for him, and what does not. I love those "aha" moments where he totally GETS something I have been trying to explain to him. I love calling my dad up with yet another of his impossible to answer questions. (My dad knows everything, or at least says he does, haha.) I love tucking his way too big body into his bed at night. I love scaring him to pieces by coming around the corner when he least expects it. (I am terrible, I know.) I love asking him to get something from the top shelf because he is, after all, TallBoy.

I like my kid and I am having the time of my life with him as a teen. Maybe it's me as the parent that is breaking all the rules, but my Teen is not becoming an alien. I'm actually getting to know him better.

Arg!

TallBoy went to Homecoming last night. With a girl.

It was just as friends, but this is by far the biggest development in his social life in years. He was so excited about it he couldn't sleep Thursday night and paced a lot.

The night started well- we had the girl over for homemade pizza and cookies. He wore a polo (he is strictly a T-shirt kid). He bought her a corsage and paid for her tickets. He held the door for her. I drove them over to the game and they hung out and talked while watching our team lose (horribly) again.

Then another boy shows up and hits on this girl (who TallBoy REALLY LIKES and has been slowly trying to earn a position as boyfriend material with) all night. In front of TallBoy.

I was elected driver to and from Homecoming as The Dude had to work at 5 am today and would need to go to bed early. I am usually in bed by 10 at the latest and stayed up until almost 1am with picking the kids up, driving her home and dealing with TallBoy.

TallBoy did not have a fun night. He's too nice to say anything to either the girl or the guy and spent most of the night moping and being full of angst.

Then TallBoy couldn't sleep and was up at 4am. The Dude and I offered some advice and tried to help him gain some perspective. Because like it or not, TallBoy is in high school and he will encounter this sort of situation again. And he needs some help dealing with it.

While TallBoy was off at Homecoming, I made some cards. Mostly birthday cards, but a couple all occasion as well. I already had a large collection of "thank you"s made so I didn't need any of those. I took pictures of the ones I made and the ones I had to upload and show off. I also took pictures of my Khador figs and a scrapbook I am working on, for a virtual "progress report".

I am still using our backup computer because our regular one is STILL SICK from the dang virus. The backup computer does not have a memory card reader.

Arg!

Life today

The Dude worked at the store 5 days this week. Because the store is 25 miles away, he stayed in town and didn't come home between jobs, and was gone from 5am to midnight on 4 of those days. The other, he left before I came home from work and I did not see him before I went to bed.

My wonderful teen son reminded me yet again why I do not own weaponry. (Grades and homework are NOT his strong point, regardless of how brilliant he is. ) My darling daughter was sick and I have no time off at work. The laundry was not done. Dishes were not done. Homework battles, sticking to my guns on discipline and other normal harried mom junk became a million times harder because I was doing it alone.

The single-married mom phenomenon is not unique. I know a lot of women whose husbands are in grad school, or who work construction, or who deal with deployments etc. Most of the women I know personally run their homes as their first job.

I work outside the home as well as run my household and I was on an even keel until the Dude decided to take on extra days at the store every other week. Now I am all out of whack and I couldn't even ask him to hold me while I whined about it. I'm learning not to whine and trying to get better at time management.

I just have a million things going on. I'm trying to learn frugal cooking, I have some baking projects on my agenda, I have a scrapbooking project I want to finish, I have 2 games now (invited to a new one recently and no character for a run tonight, eek), I am painting WM minis (Doomreavers and finishing Kommandos), making a Magic deck and sorting cards- plus SweetPea is in basketball & Girl Scouts, I have church events and a teenager with a social life.

I need a V8!

Entering Foreign Territory- Teen Dating

Well, color me befuddled.

My darling, adorable, freckled, super-cute "little star" went and got to be "TallBoy" and in the process has developed attractiveness to the girl kind.

GULP.

I'm actually pretty relaxed about it, but it is fairly amusing to me that my sweaty, smelly, not-entirely-social teen boy has suddenly turned into an obsessive neat freak that showers a million times a week and has a girl (and sometimes more than one) calling/texting/hanging out with him in a matter of WEEKS.

Gotta love the senior factor of Fin- but TallBoy did a lot of this himself. He is very confident about himself and does not let anyone else change the way he acts or what he does. He likes games, action movies, painting miniatures, reading way out there fantasy/sci-fi/morbid vampire stuff (um, he's MY kid) and is not really all that shallow. He doesn't kowtow or follow the back at ALL.

All this time he's been a little "different"; he's been lying in wait for someone to discover that he's ok for who HE is. He recently found a couple of girls who have figured out that his being "weird" is actually a GOOD thing, because he is not interested in acting like an idiot to impress his "buddies"- he wants to impress the GIRL.

He has been actively showing off his cooking skills ( I am also teaching him laundry so he will make good husband material) and has introduced quite a few of his friends to a large number of new bands out of our 1500+CD library. He likes poetry and actually has an interest in acting, so he's been getting loads of female attention lately.

And it is crazy. As a mom, I am just incredulous- but thrilled.

One of the girls he's interested in (at least a little, but possibly longer term than not) is the former girlfriend of Fin. I warned TallBoy of the potential for drama- quite loudly. This girl is so cute I'd hit on her if I were male. She's also 17 and drives. I heard a few interesting comments about the age difference; but The Dude is almost 6.5 years older than I am, so I can't really say a lot. I CAN give good advice. I talk to TallBoy a lot about a variety of things and amazingly enough, he listens. Mostly.

The other girl is one much closer to his age, but VERY recently broke up with one of TallBoy's friends' brothers. More drama, anyone? Again, I have very little room to talk as I dated The Dude's roommate before I dated The Dude, and The Dude dated my former best friend.

Ah, the nature of relationships and how they become tangled. I CAN give good advice, though. TallBoy listens- mostly.

TallBoy and the younger girl (no nickname as yet) are going to Homecoming "as friends". TallBoy had not completely thought about this proposition as he did not know or understand that he was paying for WAY more than his ticket. (Her ticket, a flower/corsage, meal... ) I WILL teach this boy manners if it kills me.

He does not know if she is interested in him as a "boyfriend" yet, but she's been at our house 4 nights this week. She's enjoyed herself with him and has asked to come over again.

So far we've set some house rules- but "dating" has not officially begun. I am not sure I am ready- but I can't fail HIM either.

I just have to learn how to hide grey hair.