Teenage Girls, John Hughes, Dating, and Me

In my house we have two teenage girls. I cannot begin to tell you the drama that can ensue. If it's not one thing it's another. Someone was in someone else's room, someone borrowed a shirt without asking, someone looked at someone wrong. That's just between them. Mix in two parents and a little brother and stir and you have all the makings of a reality show waiting to happen.

My husband while he is a wonderful husband and equally wonderful father likes to tease the children. He is actually quite the instigator. While they were all best of friends when the girls were young, they are older now and somehow have lost the comradery that they once shared. Dad isn't as funny as he used to be. The girls aren't as laid back and forgiving as they once were. All of a sudden or perhaps it only seems all of a sudden to us as we still see our children as just that...children. They seem to have gone from cute cuddly little babies and adorable funny toddlers to angsty teenagers over night. When I think back to my teenage years and all the teenage movies I watched, I just can't remember John Hughes covering this topic.

How did we get here? Where is my movie to draw information from. I know how teenagers can be. I was once a teenager and I now have two of them. What I don't know is how I get myself caught up to it. I also have no idea how the personality can switch over night...nay every moment. One minute you are having a perfectly normal conversation with said teen and the next minute they are madder than a wet hornet and you are left wondering what it is you said to make them mad. Are there research studies being done? Is this normal?

I am pretty sure I was exactly the same way, although to get me to own it would take a tremendous amount of coaching and perhaps a certain amount of rewards like one would reward a child for doing the right thing. I prefer to look back at my childhood and remember myself as the perfect child a parent could ever have. Perhaps this is going to certain extremes on my part but as I haven't any comparison I can claim it. Being an only child does have that one perk. When my counterparts were all off experimenting with drugs, or alcohol, or smoking, or sex, I was watching television where families stayed together and hoping one day I could be a part of one that did. I was also very busy planning my wardrobe and wondering if I had the right shoes to go with every outfit. Fashion was very important to me, and while I did have my eye on boys and thought about them often I was not interested particularly in anything permanent. Boys were for buying you food so you could avoid salmon patty night at home and giving you a ride home so you didn't have to call mom for one. They really had no other function in my mind. I desperately wanted out of my house and I was sure that if I could only get discovered as the fashion icon I imagined myself to be, I would soon enough end up in Chicago living my dream of life in a big city traveling to buy clothes FOR Bloomingdale's not just FROM Bloomingdale's. Because of course when you are the one doing the buying for the big store I was pretty sure one of the perks would be FREE clothes.

My own daughters while they notice certain boys and are fond of them, see them much the same way as I did. They are teenagers but not yet of dating age. They won't be allowed to even think of being somewhere other than school with a boy. No group date, no date date, period end of thought. If you can't drive yourself home from any situation you may face, you have no business being there. Any boy who would come to call on one of my daughters will be questioned extensively before she will ever enter a car with him. No honking of the horn for her to come out, if you aren't man enough to meet the parents, you aren't worthy of my daughter's time. I'm thinking of making up a written exam. Such questions that would be required on the exam would be as follows...

1. When driving where do your hands go? Of course the appropriate answer would be ten and two. Because your hands do not belong anywhere on my daughter. No holding of the hands, no hand on the thigh. If you are that distracted you could end up in an accident and I will hold you personally responsible for any harm that may come to my child because of your stupidity.

2. Do you own your car? Not did your parents pay for it. Did you save money to buy your own car? This shows that you can stick to a goal. If you have everything handed to you on a silver platter, chances are you are going to expect my daughter to hand things to you that you are not going to get. (Side note: My daughters do have very good right cross punches and will not take kindly to your unwanted advances. Also if you try something and I find out about it I will call your mommy.)

You may think that I am getting a little carried away. After all I did date when I was a teenager. Maybe not as long as some but I did date and I had plenty of friends who dated a LOT. I know the stories. Some I wrote. This is why I need my movie. My oldest daughter is very close to turning fifteen. My time is running out here. That dating age is approaching swiftly. I can only hope that she will still have her heart set on Daniel Radcliffe and find all other boys lacking. At present she finds all the boys at school quite immature and lacking in some form or another. I relish in this. In fact when I hear stories from my friends about how their daughters have boyfriends or like this boy or another, I chuckle inside. I think better them than me by golly. How lucky am I that I don't have to deal with all of this? Lucky indeed! But soon and without warning just like the teenage years themselves, it will be upon me.

Some boy whom I haven't met yet or who doesn't even know her yet will one day look up and see her. He will hear her laugh and think it sounds like church bells on Sunday morning. He will see her smile and think it is as beautiful as the sunrise. He will look into her heart and mind and find what I know is already there. The love and beauty of a thousand angels. Then he will ask her out. All I can say for him is...I hope he tests well.

Facebook, Freecell, and Me

I am not good at sitting still. Rarely will you find me just sitting. I will sit and read a book. I tend to get engrossed in a book. I imagine that I'm there, that I'm a character in the book. I see what they see, I feel what they feel. I imagine at times that I can do great things. Of course once the book is placed on the table and I have to be done reading for the day because of course I do have other responsibilities, I'm reminded that there really is very little that I can do or at least do well. At least if you are comparing me to the character in a book.

When watching television I find it next to impossible to just sit and stare at the television. I have to be doing something else besides. I am folding laundry or I'm playing Boggle with my husband. If after the children are in bed, I have my chores completed for the day I will sit down with my laptop and watch television. While I am watching my television show, on DVR of course because I don't have the attention span to get through all the commercials, I will get on facebook. There was a time when I would be playing the plethora of games available on facebook to play. I have all the farms and animals and restaurants. What I found was that in getting involved with all those games, I wasn't actually relaxing and having fun. It got to be too much, my crops needed tending, my animals were going to the pound, it was all very stressful. So I gave it up.

When I get on facebook I read to see how all my friends are doing. I think of something that I find amusing and make that my status and then facebook gets put into the background on my computer. Then I watch my show and play freecell. Sometimes I play this for a few minutes, sometimes I play it until my hotty hubby gets home from work.

I wonder at times how others spend their free time. When your housework is done, because you have taught your children to do work to earn money, and your children are in bed and your husband is at work, how do you spend your time? I suppose I should work out. It is unlikely though, of course, if I didn't get a work out in during the day when everyone was out of the house that I'm going to spend my evening doing so. So I spend my free time either reading a book or watching television while facebook is on in the background of my freecell game. I am determined to get my winning percentage up. I like freecell. There are no imaginary crops or animals to kill, there are no restaurants to bankrupt, there isn't even a little Yoville person who is likely to become homeless because I didn't make it go to work or redecorate her house.

So am I the one most likeley of all my friends to be on facebook? I suppose I am. Which is really quite ironic as I never really wanted a facebook. The main reason that I got a facebook is because my best friend lives well over an hour away. She got one and told me it would be a great way for us to communicate with each other for free. So I guess we can all thank Christi for all my little blurbs on facebook. All those Confessions of a Middle-Aged Drama Queen Status updates, all the movie quotes, all the descriptions of why it's not necessarily good to have me as a neighbor, all the claims of meals gone horribly wrong are thanks to Christi saying how about you get a facebook so we can talk for free even though we can talk for free with our Verizon to Verizon cell phone plan.

So me on facebook is a bit different than others. The way I figure it, no one really cares about what I had for lunch unless it was truly amazing. If it was as sometimes it is, I include a picture of it. No one really cares about meaningless drivel. So I like to tell a story. I am a happy person. I enjoy my life and feel very blessed to live the life I have so I won't be complaining on facebook about how the entire world is against me. As I see it I'm blessed to wake up in the morning as I'm not guaranteed a single day. So I sometimes think of things to inspire, sometimes I think of things to make people smile. I guess in my mind I think that perhaps if at one point in a day I was able to make someone smile who may have been having a bad day then that day was a day well spent.

So... what do you do in your spare time?

The Valentine Party or Shake it UP!

Valentine's Day. That single day on February fourteenth seems to make plenty of people for lack of a better word...crazy. When little girls are little girls the only Valentine they want or need is their daddy. When they are teenagers however, it becomes such a big deal to have a Valentine that they spend the next several years hating the day until they too, have a Valentine of their very own.

Well I have have had the same Valentine for the last twenty one years. While I am thankful for such a blessing, for me it's just another day to spend with the one I love. I don't need to commercialize it. I don't need the heart box of candy or the flowers that will wilt and die. I suppose once you've been with the same person for so long, just being together is in and of itself the gesture. If you spend your whole life waiting for gestures you will always spend it wanting instead of spending it living. This Valentines Day I spent at a 4H meeting with my kids. I did prepare a lovely meal for the family and I did get plenty of hugs and kisses. Things I never take for granted and am thankful each day for.

This year was different in one respect. We did go this weekend to a Valentine's Party with our Sunday school class. Twelve couples gathered together for food, fellowship and fun. And fun we did have. I can honestly say that I cannot remember laughing so hard for a very long time.

The meal was wonderful. Appetizers that included a crab dip that I will long for for days to come. Salads, pork chops, cheesy potatoes, green beans, rolls and desserts. I cannot begin to describe the desserts, but I will try of course. There was this peanut butter and chocolate dessert that would make Reese cry. There was this sort of a cookie/brownie type thing that was delightful as well as perhaps a dirt pudding. All of it was wonderful and I will have to walk 10,000 miles to work all that I consumed off.

The best part however, was the entertainment. Minute to Win It! If you have seen this particular game show you know that you have a minute to win it. We were working toward collecting the most cards for the grand prize. Unfortunately this is a game of pure luck not a game of how well you know your partner. As I was sure that we would have that sort of game locked up. As it was we were only able to collect two cards and four cards won. We stacked apples. I kept thinking the entire time of the Dr. Seuss book Ten Apples Up On Top! As I stacked my five apples I kept thinking of that book and was thankful that I only had to stack them on a table and not on my head. I actually thought when I let go they would all tumble down but they stayed. No one was more surprised than I was. Also after twelve people had their hands on your apples, I'd just make sure you peel them before consuming them.

So we all stacked apples, we stacked nuts, we stacked dice on a popcycle stick that was in our mouth. We attempted to get an Oreo from our forehead to our mouth without using our hands. But the most entertaining of all games played last night was this... Take a tissue box put a belt through it and fill it with jingle bells. Fasten the belt around your rear and then with out using your hands get the jingle bells out of the box. Oh and no you cannot simply stand on your head like one tried to do. Apparently that is too easy. I personally thought it was impressive and there is no possible way I could ever stand on my head or hands. So you must bounce. Like Tigger in Winnie the Pooh. Bounce! Talk about shaking your groove thing. Three grown men and one grown woman were all that was brave enough to attempt this fete. It was the funniest thing I think I have ever witnessed. The laughter that this brought about was vast. In fact long after the party, after I was tucked into bed I was till giggling about it.

We then played a version of the Newlywed Game. We were asked questions about which couple would be most likely to do certain things. The couple who got the most votes for each question won. I'm pretty sure the last question was thrown in just so I could win. The question being "Who would most likely be on facebook if they weren't here tonight." Of course everyone chose me. Which will lead to the next blog I intend to write entitled "Facebook, Freecell, and Me" about a woman who can't sit still to watch television but must always be doing something. By the way the Hershey kisses that I won for that question were delightful.

This was our first Valentine party. We had no idea what to expect. We had a great time and are so happy that we went. We are blessed to go to church with wonderfully insightful, charming, warm, friendly people and as we found out last night they are also quite hilarious. So when I think back on the evening for the next few days I will remember not that apparently I'm perceived as the one most likely to be on facebook, because let's face it I probably am, but I'll remember a fun evening among friends.