Having teenage daughters is much like having an Advent Calendar:
Every day a new treat inside.
Except, with this Advent Calendar, the drawers you open contain tiny scrolls that state which way you’ve embarrassed, upset, or made them frustrated today.
“August 29 – Suggested a (OMG. I can barely say it) crockpot dinner”
“August 30 – Asked them to help bag groceries at the grocery store IN FRONT OF PEOPLE.”
“August 31 – Told them they needed to come home and do homework instead of roaming the town square, free like vagrants, and gnawing on chicken strips they got for the fourth day in a row at Safeway for $1.99.”
I’ve gotten used to the mortified looks and silent sideways glances.
I might even say I’ve started accepting them with my head held high.
If I cannot skip over this part of parenting, I might as well enjoy the ride.
Any parent of a teenager knows that it doesn’t matter what you do.
Say something: Wrong.
Say nothing: Wrong.
Hug them: Wrong.
Don’t hug them: Wrong.
Walk away from them: Wrong.
Walk toward them: Now they’re completely mortified.
Therefore, I have decided to embrace it.
The Ruiner of Their Future.
I’ll just be me with pride.
On Sunday I told one I hoped she knew I loved her and when I came to later,
I was engaged in a tearful conversation about several of my apparent crimes.
Today, however, I kept my eyes down at the ground, as to not be turned to stone,
and somehow got an unsolicited hug from each of my teens.
Recent studies show, when it comes to teens, there is no rhythm or rhyme.
There is a cute boy that works at our town’s Papa Murphy’s – And not just any kind of cute, but even I agree, the model type.
The first time my 14 year old, Chloe, and I noticed him, there was some issue with the store’s card-reader, requiring that we keep standing there in line as he tried to fix the problem.
My sideways glances at Chloe could tell there was no disappointment in that wait.
Not. even. slight.
She mentioned noticing the veins in his hands when she got back in the car.
That was it. Just the veins,
then she flare-nostril breathed through the rest of the ride.
When school started, she came home smiling to report that she had discovered that Papa Murphy’s Boy (as he has come to be known) actually goes to her school.
She bubbled as she told that she had passed him in the hallway, and she could tell he had recognized her.
Good thing masks don’t cover everything. Recognition’s all in the eyes.
Then there was the other day while she was kneeling down in the quad fiddling with her backpack when her hand slipped, sending it flying back, and she had smacked something hard.
She turned to see it had been him she’d hit, and she was now eye-to-eye.
She said she was sorry.
He said it was fine.
Both flustered, they had just gone on.
Now, all of this might sound like a sure beginning to some high school love story type of thing,
if not for the slight detour we took from that end the last time we went to his store,
when upon paying, this same boy (obviously flustered after seeing Chloe from the time of the dinging open door) opened up the cash register, and then afterwards
closed his apron strings in the drawer.
For several long seconds of struggle, he fought trying to get free.
Chloe just stood there holding pizzas, and I don’t think she could even breathe.
I knew without looking at her exactly what was happening:
His struggle….How it made his muscles….
I think she may have just cooked the pizzas if we’d stood any longer there.
But then, in a moment that she tells me canceled out every other remotely romantic thing,
and that today’s Advent Calendar’s scroll will surely read,
I, Kerri Green, had what can only be described as an out of body experience watching him,
(as I am ALSO not dead yet)
and in an attempt to positively ruin her life,
Asked Papa Murphy’s Boy if I was
“by any chance going to have to use a pizza cutter to cut him out of that apron there.”
I felt it as soon as I said it, but I just clung on.
We cannot let them smell our fear, you guys. They will think that they have won.
He just looked up, blushing, still trapped in the register,
and Chloe? Well, I think if she had had her way she would have collapsed and slithered on her belly right out of that store.
Our driving home conversation included a lecture by her, and me saying the words,
“Oh, come on, Chloe. That’s not what I MEAN.”
I argued I had thought myself more of a first-responder type.
Apparently, though, to hear her tell it, I was now a creepy cougar mom trying to
“cut me off a slice.”
I cannot escape it, see. Even just buying dinner for them, I’m the “literal MOST embarrassing.”
*This is Kerri’s 50th nomination, and her 35th win*
Whatever, Chloe. I’m 44. I say what I say.
Now if you don’t mind, I’ll take my trophy.
There are lots of teenage days still coming, and I haven’t yet opened up the Advent Calendar for today.
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.
