My Middle School girls, ages nearly 12 and 13, are deep in the throws of their Constant Embarrassment Phase.
Reasons they could be horrified can range in cause from anything from a nearly invisible oil stain on their shirt to someone else spotting me singing in my car while they are in the car with me,
to even just the way that I moved my head.
Tonight at dinner, while describing something to my mom, I did the latter in a rapid way for affect, which is when my soon-to-be 12 year old, Tessa, looked at me deadpan and told me that she “passed on that aesthetic.”
However,
being that my husband and I will not be taken out by these minions we’ve raised,
we realize that our main job with kids at this age is clear:
Mortify them enough to keep them on their toes, while also working to teach them that being weird is actually more than OK.
You might even say that it’s kind of fun.
Lately the girls have been taking walks around town together,
since that’s all that there really is to do.
I have dubbed these their “Walkabouts.”
I give them a bit of money, some instructions, and let them live for a few hours with the illusion of freedom, all the while tracking them with my eyes around town.
I have a friend reporting from the food stand, and another at the corner clothing shop.
There is one at the diner, and at the hardware store.
I get messages from these spies for the next several hours saying things like:
“I just saw them cross by the bank.
They saw me staring.
If they tell you there was a creepy person watching them in the parking lot it was probably me.”
The other day during one such walk, my husband was headed home from work.
I texted him to say that the girls were on a Walkabout,
and he knew just what that meant to do.
As he came into town, he spotted them on the far side of the square, just sitting by the giant fountain; so he did what any father of pre-teen girls should do:
He circled the entire square (4 full blocks) honking, shouting, and wildly waving out his window at them for all of the town to see.
“HEY GIRLS! I KNOW THOSE GIRLS! I KNOW THEM! SEE THEM?! SEE THOSE GIRLS?!
I TOTALLY KNOW THEM!”
In this small town, you cannot stay out of view.
Even if you dive into a bush,
which is exactly what they did, while shooing him with their whole arms,
mouthing,
“No! No! Stop! STOP! Please GO!”
He walked through the door a few minutes later looking like a man who’d done his fullest duty.
He drank a big gulp of water, and did a satisfied, “Ahhhhhh,” then immediately fell asleep on the couch.
I guess we just feel like it’s our job to desensitize them to the embarrassment that all eyes are on, and are judging them.
Kids these days feel so many performance pressures, so for a few minutes
we will bear the pressures for them.
I want them to know that it’s OK to just BE how you want to be.
Have messy hair. Sing loud in your car.
Who cares who stares?
Who cares who’s watching?
And so today I share this next story and dedicate it to Chloe and Tessa.
I’ll call it “Just Be Who you Are.”
One night in our early dating days, Justin and I were out on a date when I bit into some extra crusty French bread expecting to savor it, but off came my right front tooth cap in it, instead.
I had lost that front tooth on a whole different date years before when I’d driven my date and myself straight into a concrete ditch in a truck that was lacking in shocks.
My mouth had hit the steering wheel, my tooth ne’er to be seen again, and my date’s head cracked the entire windshield.
Much to my surprise, we went on a second date after that, and many more even after.
But there I sat, feeling pressure on this date, not wanting to let my bad dating luck be a streak, or look like a Hillbilly, and so I said nothing.
I just cradled that bread to my face with my eyeballs as big as a Bush Baby’s.
I’m sure Justin wondered if I was chewing the bread, or attempting to absorb it directly through osmosis.
I worked quickly using that bread like some kind of mit to secretly settle the tooth cap back in place.
Unfortunately, that tooth no longer had any adhesive, and thus, was barely holding on.
The tip of my tongue and my prayers straight to the ears of God were all that got me through that dinner.
I couldn’t really talk for the rest of the evening for fear it would come spilling right out of my mouth like a coin slot. My mind reeling with all of the potential endings of how this date could play out.
I’m sure Justin wondered why I had grown so suddenly silent.
I’m sure the sight of me pressing it to my lips for so long made him wonder if he’d been replaced by my new love, The French bread;
But I didn’t want to let this brand new boy see me suddenly without a front tooth,
so I chose fake it ‘til you make it instead.
Amazingly I made it through that whole date without him being any wiser.
I got the tooth fixed the very next day, and never spoke of it again to him until a short while later in our relationship when I would find out that there had been no reason to feel uncomfortable that night,
because Justin –
He had a matching right front tooth crown, too.
He, too, knows all about gaping tooth holes.
The scene of us finally sharing our same fake teeth was funny and also extremely relieving.
He had lost his in a youth group relay game.
He’d tripped and the concrete floor had sheered off his tooth at a pointy angle.
He didn’t even realize what had happened at all until he’d stood and smiled there at all the other youth, including a girl that he’d had his eye on.
Lucky for me, she had “passed on that aesthetic,” too.
I became his Hillbilly, and he became mine.
Now, in life, I have learned the lesson that
you may as well just go ahead and let who you are show.
The people who are meant to be with you will understand even your most embarrassing feeling things.
The things that felt embarrassing may be a thing you even have in common.
We call them our Capped Tooth Wedding Rings now.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
