by Judy Merrill Larsen
It's mid-summer and can I just say I'm tired? The kids aren't--no, they've just realized the summer's half over and they're frantically trying to fit everything in--which apparently requires no sleep, my money, and me being on a need-to-know basis.
Some questions/observations adding to my fatigue:
~Have teenagers always been nocturnal? I mean even way back in the early part of the 1900's--when everyone lived on farms and milked cows and baled hay? Because I'm just wondering if maybe global warming has affected the sleep cycles of adolescents. Perhaps it's bad parenting on my part? Should I have not let them "cry it out" when they were little? Too few yams mixed in with their rice cereal? I mean they sleep through my vacuuming right outside their doors. God help us if the smoke alarm ever goes off before noon.
~I think I'll actually have more cash on hand when the kids go back to school this fall and I'm ONLY paying for tuition rather than groceries and filling up the gas tank. Can I apply my student loan money to my local supermarket?
~Have my husband and I totally lost our sense of youthful fun when we find ourselves (earlier and earlier every summer, it seems) looking forward to schedules and regular mealtimes and school nights? Every night is Friday night when you're a teenager in the summer. But it's not for the 'rents. And we're getting tired of being tired. (Yes, I do go to bed before they get home, but they have to wake me up and let me know they are home. Really messes with my REM cycles, not to mention my beauty sleep!)
~Remember back in the good old days when we were kids and we actually spoke to one another? Instead of texts? And how is it that the same kids who can't remember to turn off the bathroom fan and consistently put empty cereal boxes back on the pantry shelf can send messages at the speed of light all the while setting different ring tones for different callers? Yet, I'm the one who gets paid (well, in a sense) to write, but my texts always look like some mix of encoded, encrypted pig latin? Are their fingers just more fit? Younger?
And, now, when I read over this, I feel like I've turned into that cranky woman around the corner who wears sensible shoes, circulation hosiery, and a sweater that pills. I need to find my inner madcap, fun, understanding mom. I'm off to look for her . . . let me know if you find her.
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7 comments:
I tried to go a whole day not speaking to my teens, but communicating entirely through text messages. I was trying to make a point. They never even noticed.
You are not cranky. You're my twin sister.
I love my kids, and too soon my older one will be moving into his first apartment, prior to the start of his sophomore year at college. But....
I'm tired of no schedules; of not knowing who's going to be home for dinner, of not knowing if, when I get in the car, there will be even a fume of gas left in it because apparently, everybody's definition of "a little gas left" is different than mine; of being sucked into the whole atmosphere of summer vacation every single night. I love spending time with my family but honestly, I could use less staying up 'til midnight watching DVD's and popping pop corn, and more going to bed at a sensible hour so that I can actually get some work done the next day.
Of course, I realize that in two and a half weeks, when my son has moved out again, I will be beating my breast and mourning how fast the summer passed.
Inconsistency, thy name is mother!
Oh, Kalynne, that's too funny.
Melanie, so glad it's not just me. And yes, come fall, I'll be lamenting the lazy days of summer, too.
honey when you find that inner madcap, let me know where it is because I'm searching too. Honestly, the vampires is what I call my kids. I'll get up (for the 2nd time of the night) at 2:30 a.m. and the lights are still on all over the house. There are still several kids (from who knows where) in the basement watching movies and playing pool. Hell, the other night my 14-y/o was up at 2:30. I asked her why and she said she was unpacking her favorite brand new white delicate shirt from a weekend at the lake with friends and her friend got jimmies on it (the colored ones from ice cream cones) and of course with wet laundry the jimmies bled, and so of course you know how it must've looked. So she decides---even though she's never even opened a bottle of bleach in her life--=that she's going to bleach her shirt. Nothing like the vision of spilled and spattered bleach all over your mountains of laundry at 2:30 in the morning to wake one up...
Well, not only is the inner madcap mom nowhere to be found, the inner bitch mom is alive and well and OUT!! Just ask the kid I just yapped at.
Oh I know that gal well. the Inner Bitch Mom? I channel her. Early and often ;-)
Even I was wondering where have I left that devilish streak to be replaced by a prim and propah lady.Children point out to some of the mom's shown on T.v serials saying I am behaving like one of them just when I would wonder could any mom be like that? Hey I got to change pretty soon.
Check my blogs where I have written my thoughts on parenting and you are welcome to post your comments.Culture wise our upbringing does vary a lot. I might get a different perspective from you guys.Just click on http://www.ponderingparent.com
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