It's Not Easy Being This Not Cool

Okay. I’ve faced facts. I am not cool.

People (under the age of 20) kept telling me that, but I didn’t want to believe them.

I was sure I was cool! Hip. With it. All that! (Good lord, and to think people actually talk that way!)

But the evidence establishing my non-coolness kept stacking up.

I don’t paint my toenails. Or my fingernails. And I don’t understand why anyone else would, either.

I don’t use mousse in my hair; and if I eat mousse, it looks far more like hearty stew than light pudding.

I didn’t know there were shaving creams for men; and shaving creams for women--or that there was anything wrong with a girl’s legs smelling like Gillette. Last time I raised my calf to my nose, it smelled just fine. The occasion is imprinted on my mind, in fact; due to the excruciating charley horse that crippled me afterwards.

I thought “product” was a result, and had no idea it was actually hair goop. “I FINALLY have some product!” said the teenager after arriving home from a shopping trip with her girlfriend (called ‘BFF’ by the cool crowd).

Whatever!

And then, there was today’s business with the gentleman caller. He came over to the house and brought a movie to watch. With my daughter. In the living room. On the couch.

Now…it was hot this afternoon. It was 85 if it was a degree. We have a large sofa, a love seat, an over-stuffed chair, a recliner and a Canadian glider in the living room. The room easily seats eight. Easily! It made absolutely no sense for the both of them to sit on the same piece of furniture. None whatsoever. There were three vacant seats, each equally comfortable and made soft by an excess of cat hair. There was no reason for the girl and the gentleman caller to sit on the same couch--and certainly, not on the same HALF of the couch.

And I said so.

Apparently, that’s not cool.

There was also no reason for them to go for a walk, either. We live in the woods. Once you’ve seen one tree, you’ve seen them all, right? Sometimes you can’t even see the forest around here, for all the trees we’ve got that look identical. So there was no earthy reason for them to go for a walk. Not without the girl’s younger brother AND the visiting labra-doodle in tow, anyway.

The four of them had a lovely time on their walk…but I rated a look that said I was far, far, far from cool as I handed her the leash and pushed her brother out the door behind them.

Apparently, it’s cool to wear jeans that are so tight you can ping quarters off them, but I had to mention the snug-fitting apparel before finding that out.

The jeans are cool. Mentioning them in the same sentence with quarters—not cool.

I have been informed that it’s also not cool to hang out my upstairs bedroom window saying, “Sheesh! How long does it take to walk someone to his car, anyway? Time to go home, kiddo! Chop, chop!”

Way not cool. Waaaay! I’m so ‘not cool’ that my youngest son, before he even has any serious interest in a particular girl, has informed me that he’ll never invite one over to our house. He says I’d scar the poor thing for life.

He exaggerates, of course. I might be ‘way not cool’, but I’m harmless. My intentions are good. And really, I can’t be held responsible for my lack of coolness. If my girl had shown up downstairs in baggy jeans and sweatshirt, with legs that smelled like Gillette, and limp, product-free hair, unpainted toes and fingers, and with a plan to stay inside the house and ALONE inside her personal space (five feet in all directions would have been sufficient), I would have shown those teenagers exactly how cool I could be.

Scarred for life? Hah! They ought to try having MY job. It’s not easy being this ‘not cool’. I’m exhausted…

The Nightly Dance

‘Josie, it’s none of your business!’

‘Yes, it is. I have to live with you!’

‘No, you don’t! You can go live with Cassie. That’d be great!’

‘I don’t want to live with Cassie.’

‘Yeah, that’s because her mother would never let you, anyway.’

‘Yes, she would!’

‘No way! You’re such a brat; no one wants to live with you.’

‘Well, at least I don’t stink!’

‘You do, too! You smell like a pig!’

‘You should talk! You are the smelliest kid on the bus!’

‘Well, at least I don’t act like an idiot every time a boy gets on the bus!’

‘Yeah. Right. You act like an idiot every time anyone gets on the bus.’

‘Just shut up.’

‘You shut up!’

‘No, you!’

‘No, you!’

‘No, you!’

I pushed myself away from the doorjamb where I had been leaning, arms folded across my chest as I listened to this clever conversation. The sound of their raised, irritated voices had pulled me downstairs from my bedroom office on the second floor.

‘Here’s an idea, guys! Why don’t you both be quiet!’

But Josie, completely unintimidated by my presence and my suggestion, had to get the last word in.

‘No, you!’

‘Josie! I said, be quiet!’ I could see the wheels turning in that lovely head. I could see the split second the cogs meshed and she decided it wasn’t worth the risk to utter one final ‘No, you!’ Wise choice.

‘Well, tell Eli to quit telling me to shut up!’

I cocked my head to one side.

‘I believe I just heard you telling him the same thing!’

‘Yeah, Josie!’

‘You!’ I swung to face my thirteen year old. ‘You be quiet!’

‘She started it!’

‘Nuh-uh! He threw the remote at me!’

‘Yeah, after you moved it out of the chair, where I was sitting!’

‘Guys! BE QUIET!!’

‘You got out of it, Eli! You snooze, you lose!’

‘Josie! Enough!’

‘Mum! I was watching Stargate SG-1 and I got up to go to the bathroom, and Josie took my chair!’

‘You’ve been watching TV for two hours! It’s my turn to pick a show!’

‘After this show is over! You can’t just change it in the middle of a show, and you can’t take my chair just because I go to the bathroom!’

‘Well, I can’t see it from the couch!’

‘You don’t like Stargate, anyway! You don’t need to see it!’

‘I need to see MY show!’

‘You shouldn’t even be WATCHING your show!’

‘You’ve hogged the TV all day! First you played X-Box, and then you watched your stupid shows!’

‘Your show is the stupid one!’

‘No, yours is!’

‘No, yours is!’

Click.

All She Wanted for Christmas

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This was the first Christmas in many, many years that I was able to spend some of the holiday with my grandmother. For the last decade she's spent her winters in Kansas with my uncle, her eldest son. This year, however, her visit was delayed. This year, she was a part of my holiday traditions, and those of my children.

My two youngest kids are only a little more than a year apart in age. Like puppies in a litter, they bicker and brawl, snap and snarl. It is rare for a day to pass without the two of them getting into an argument. Usually, the disagreement is over something stupid or trivial, like whether Duracell or Energizer batteries last longer. Neither of them knows the answer. Neither of them cares. Not really. But they each have the urge to have the last word. They each want to prove their superiority over the other.

There are days when they drive me 'round the bend.

But Mammy had a request for Christmas. When asked by my daughter what she would like for a gift, Mammy told her that all she wanted was a photo of the two of them. Together. Smiling.

Lordy, lordy, lordy...

I envisioned The Photo Shoot From Hell. My son hates to have his picture taken, and when I do manage to get him to stand still for a moment, he's usually scowling. And my daughter is convinced that she is The Boss. She has the urge to control her brother, and she drives him (and her parents) crazy as she tries to direct his every action, word and and expression. Which makes him grumpier, of course, and that causes the frowns to grow in size and frequency.

So I thought that getting a decent photo of my two youngest children was going to be a royal chore.

Instead, I didn't have to lift a finger. Not only that, but the two of them didn't fight, at all.


My daughter asked to borrow my camera. She told her brother that his great-grandmother had only one request for Christmas, and that was to have a picture of the two of them smiling for her. And that's all it took. She held the camera at arm's length and snapped away. My son smiled for every shot. They laughed together, and they acted a bit silly. Oh, they squabbled. They had to! It's a long-ingrained habit, and an addiction, of sorts. But they had fun and even though most of the pictures were a bit blurry or fuzzy or the lightning was wrong, they managed to find one they both liked, and they framed it and wrapped it and gave it to Mammy. She was ecstatic with her photograph. And I have twenty pictures which prove I am the mother of some of the most awesome teenagers on the planet.


Yes, my ninety-three year old grandmother made Christmas special for us this year. In more ways than one.

Thank you, Mammy.

Teenage GrrrRumbles

Teenagers!

Who invented them, anyway?

It’s true-- I currently have a pair of the little rascals in the house at the moment. Josie-Earl is fourteen, and my baby, Eli, just turned thirteen a few days ago. Two teens. Whew!

I’ve done it before, you know. My oldest son is twenty-six, so the teenage ‘experience’ is not a new one for me. But just as the pain of labor and delivery disappears with a ‘poof’ the moment you hold that precious newborn…so did the agony of adolescence vanish once Guy left the nest. And while I’m an old hand at navigating upstream through a torrent of hormones, it doesn’t seem to be any easier, this time around. In fact, it’s doubly hard! Perhaps even triply!!!

Because, you see… one of them is a GIRL.

I was SURE that raising a girl would be a piece of cake. After all, I’m a girl! I was charming, helpful, respectful of my parents…a joy to raise! Just ask my folks! They’ll confirm it, I’m sure. Why, just recently I overheard Dad telling a friend that he’d always hoped I’d have a daughter that was JUST LIKE ME! What a sweet wish for a father to have for his precious middle child!

Alas, Josie has proven to be stubborn, willful, and much, much smarter than her mother is. I’d never realized just how stoopid I was until I saw myself reflected in a gorgeous pair of blue and rolling eyes. I’d also never realized that a human’s orbital muscles had such range of motion! Sometimes, I’m so exasperating and disgusting, that only a slender crescent of Josie’s iris is visible. Wow. To think I can do THAT!

Don’t get me wrong. My daughter is amazing. She’s beautiful, intelligent (especially in comparison to her pitiful excuse for a mother), and kind-hearted. Jose-Earl has empathy for the poor and downtrodden; whether a plant, an animal, or a human being.

Except for me.

When Jose and I interact, she employs a tone of voice that would be unrecognizable to the rest of the inhabitants of her world. It’s aggressive, and yet, it contains a distinct and melodious whine. It’s loud. Abrasive. Sometimes scornful. And occasionally, it’s even sarcastic.

I love it.

See…the world can be a tough place. Stuff can--and often DOES--happen to mow a person down, pummel them to bits, chew them up and spit them out. A person has to be tough to make it in life… or at least, to make it and to also THRIVE. And I want all three of my children to be happy and to flourish. That’s every mother’s utmost dream.

Without testing her boundaries, without pushing her limits and pulling her mother’s strings…without seeing what power lies at her disposal, my daughter would never be able to discover her independence. Never know that she is capable. More than capable! She HAS to try her mother’s patience. She has to stomp out her disagreement up and down the halls. She has to dissolve into tears at the slightest hint of ‘no’. Because perhaps--those tears hold the key. Perhaps that display of weakness is actually the greatest weapon in her arsenal. And she’ll never know unless she tests the (salty) waters!

Sometimes, I back down and give in to her requests--or even, to her demands. I choose my battles, and acquiesce when I feel the potential obstacles to her well-being are least dangerous. I concede, not because that’s the easiest route (for it IS! As God is my witness, it IS!), but because she NEEDS to win once in a while. She needs to know that she can succeed, sometimes, when she puts such a huge amount of passion and effort into something. It is also essential that she feels like I trust in her ability to make wise choices. I DON’T…because she is, after all, only fourteen. Fourteen-year-olds are idiots. It’s a fact of life. For every responsible decision she makes, she’ll make an irresponsible one. A foolish and rash one. The key, I believe, is to ACT like I trust her…while keeping an eagle eye on her at the same time. In case she needs me…to rescue her, to catch her, to haul her home and give her hell. That’s my job. Just like what she’s doing is hers.

As the years go by, I’ll grant her more privileges. I’ll let her get her way more often. She will show me, through the choices she makes, what areas she’s gotten a handle on, and where her weaknesses still lie. As she gains those small freedoms, her attitude will improve. She’ll realize (if I’ve done my job properly) that I don’t say ‘no’ to be mean, or to ruin her life, or to keep her from being as cool as her friends are. Those are all things I’ve been accused of, naturally…but my shoulders are broad. They have to be. I’m the mother of teens.

And I love it.

Yes, Josie’s hype and hyperbole will even out, and she will begin to see the world through adult eyes. She’ll realize that I had good reason to be strict about some things. She’ll understand that I made her life miserable and unbearable because I love her so darned much. She’ll eventually learn to appreciate me.

Some day, I might even be smart, again!

Yes, raising a teenage daughter is a challenge, but I welcome it. And… I hope Josie grows up to have one just like her!

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The photo above was taken at The F.A.R.M. by Jocelia Caitlin Pease. "Evening Storm Rolling In".