Since turning 13 (in 2002 - a watershed moment in my life) the Teenager leaves the table, as soon after dinner as he can get away without risking a sound smack to the back of his head, and settles in for an evening of IMing, web surfing and blogging.
I didn’t know he was sporting kelly-green rubber bands around his braces for six entire months.
He acquired a girlfriend, lost her, acquired another, lost her, acquired a third and kept her for two whole months…without ever saying a word.
He learned HTML, without any help from his mother, without even so much as asking a word of advice, without ME.
He studied the entire SAT test preparation book and got an “A” in his writing class AND his calculus class, WITHOUT MY EVEN KNOWING!
Me, the single mom totally devoted to my one and only son – wasn’t it me and The-Teenager-Formerly-Known-As-Pumpkin against the world from the very beginning of time?
Last week, he promised to be home early for dinner so that we could spend a little time together before he went out. I lovingly prepared his favorite meal only to wait for hours until giving up, feeling more lonely than a jilted lover.
Lost and neglected, I watched his wild hair grow ever longer and bushier lit only by the dim glare of his computer monitor wondering all the while, who is this alien in the body of my son?
So I turned to you, my newfound friends in the blogosphere, and a joyful time it’s been! But now...I fear, the tables have turned.
Last night, as I was composing my evening’s blog entry, the Teenager wandered into the kitchen:
“Where’s dinner?”
“In the refrigerator,” I answer without looking up, the dim glare of my laptop lighting up my face in the dusk-filled kitchen.
Shocked, he practically shouts, “WHAT? You mean it’s not READY yet?
Barely registering his dismay as I clack away at a particularly clever turn of phrase, I answer, “Sure it’s totally ready, you just have to heat it up."
He ponders the situation - has his mother turned into an alien? “But…aren’t you going to MAKE me dinner?"
I glance up briefly to note his crestfallen face and answer soothingly, “I did make dinner. It’s wonderful, honey, you’ll love it! You just have to heat it up.”
“But…but…but, aren’t you going to stop and eat with me?” he asks in a painfully pitiful voice.
After picking myself up off the floor, I looked at him blankly and said, “You mean…you WANT to eat with me?”
“YES...YES, of COURSE I do…but you never do anything but BLOG anymore! What about family? What about having dinner together? What…what…what about ME!”
parenting teenagers daily life humor
4 comments:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Hmmm, lessons learned. I might have just sat there and made him heat the dinner and eat alone. Get 'a taste' of what you've been feeling like. But you caved, didn't you?
Awwww! I would've had to pick myself up off the floor, too.
Still, I think getting occupied with something else is a good defense against teenager abandonment (even if we didn't PLAN on it being a defense) because it tricks them into thinking they aren't the center of our universes.
Yeah. I caved. I always do!
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