Mid-CenturyModernMoms

We won't be buying him socks for a while...

The step-daughters sleep in the attic. At one point there were three of them up there. Now there are two. (They're growing up, they're growing up!)

I do not go up in the attic.

Step-mothering is a chancy business, far, far harder than bio-mothering. You're a parental figure, but you're NOT the mother. I understand that. I have bio-children who have had more than a few mother-figures in their life with their dad. I want them to like the other woman, I want them all to get along; it would be lovely if they loved her, but, and perhaps this makes me petty and not having my children's best interests at heart, I dunno, I would not want them loving her like a mother. Because they have one of those. So, though I would like to get along with my husband's children, maybe like a respected and fondly-regarded aunt (?), I have never aspired to be a mother to them.

And if your husband learned a few things from one marriage to the next, and you are a hugely different person than their mother, then not only are you not the mother, but you're alien. The things you do are weird, your outlook on the world peculiar, your values suspect, the way you run your house, your social life is odd. (Their mother's outlook, values, etc., are right and yours are wrong. That goes without saying. I can deal.)

So I tread carefully. And I stay out of their room, because I know that if I saw it, I would be nigh unto fainting and SOMETHING WOULD HAVE TO BE DONE! BEFORE WE GETS BUGS IN THE HOUSE! Something like that. I really, really try to avoid situation where I have to lay down the parental law with my stepkids. I can and will do it if essential. But when it comes to adolescent bedrooms? What I don't see ain't essential.

So last week, their father came down from the attic. He goes up there from time to time when they're not around to watch television.

"I think the girls need to clean up next time they're here."

Oh, lordy. It had to be bad. My sweetie, for all his many, many virtues, is not a visual person. He is, bless his soul, a personally tidy person; he does not leave messes for me to pick up. But he does not see messes, either. For the state of the room to have registered on him, it must have been BAD.

I did not go up in the attic. I just don't want to know.

When the girls arrive, they are sent upstairs with a few guidelines. The next morning, I do go up in the support role of helping them sort the clothes that have been discarded.

There are a LOT of clothes.

It takes about an hour, but at the end we have four containers: two garbage bags of clothes that will be sent to the Goodwill; one of items that are good only for garbage, and one bag of things they will hand down to their brother. A few unisex t-shirts, but mostly?

Socks. White sport socks. DOZENS of white sport socks.

Dozens of them, going off into infinity ...

I washed first, then sorted. Which seems backward only to anyone who hasn't tried to sort filthy, balled-up, sweat-crusted socks worn by teens, the monarchs of body odour. Sorted dozens of them. (We must have bugs up there! Why do I see no bugs?) I tossed several pair with pink and purple heels and toes: too girly for a brother. I had tossed another 8 or 11 or 14 that had no match.

And at the end of the day? Youngest brother got 37 pairs of socks. THIRTY-SEVEN pairs.

And it's probably safe for me to go into the attic.

For about a week.

Why be normal?

We threw a surprise party for my son's nineteenth birthday last month.

The boy is in the 'gifted' stream at his high school, as are his friends, with only one exception. When I was offered the option of having him apply to gifted, I was only partially convinced of the merits of the programme, but decided he'd enjoy the extra intellectual stimulation. He's very bright, but academically lazy (sigh). What I didn't understand at first was just how grouping these bright kids together would change the social dynamic of high school for him, in an entirely positive way.

Perhaps your high school was different than mine, but I remember having to hide my intelligence. I muted my interest in subjects outside the norm, and tried to fake an interest in the socially accepted areas of obsession. Which, with few exceptions, bored me. I wasn't a total sell-out: I was in the band, I was on the honour roll, I took on extra projects for fun, not just for extra credit. But I learned that all these idiosyncracies would be paid for socially, and sometimes the price was higher than I could face. (University? Loved, loved, loved it. Phew.)

But these kids in my living room last month? They are so accepting of so many idiosyncracies. They shriek and yell and indulge in brainless mayhem, as all teens do, but they also converse. They think, and, even more important, they don't have to hide this from their friends.

Here are some snippets:

(No, I didn't stay and party with the children. I figure that puts me in one of two camps: the pathetic forty-something trying desperately to be cool, needing the approval of children, or the parent who trusts her children so little she can't afford to leave them alone for a second. I was around for the first hour, while guests arrived and until a few minutes after my son showed up, and then for the last hour, to ensure they all left on schedule. A reasonable compromise, I figure.)

So, the snippets:

One of the girls came wearing a pink-and-red tutu over her jeans and carrying a magic wand. No one gave it a second's thought. ("Julia's in drama. They all do stuff like that.")    

Discussing a scene in the cafeteria earlier in the week:    
"She just uses indignation to get her way."    
"Yeah. Pre-emptive outrage."    
"Well, more like proactive outrage, because she's manipulating the outcome by going all hysterical."

Twenty minutes of computer talk which went completely over my head. They weren't talking about computer games, but about motherboards and processors and various other inner workings of the machines. (The one long-time friend who isn't in the gifted programme sits on the end of the couch with his girlfriend. "Do you know what they're talking about?" she asks him. "Nah." he says with his easy-going grin. "You get used to it.")    

"Have you finished your presentation for Mr. Science Teacher?"    
"I thought I was done, but then I found out about some research they're doing at McGill that takes it in a whole new direction, and he's given me an extension so I can try to contact the research team."

"Ian! Hey, Ian, I didn't know you'd be coming!"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Hey, man, you know you don't come to half these things."
"Nothing wrong with being anti-social."
"He's a misanthrope."
"Misanthropy rules, dude!"
[Catch this? Words of more than two syllables - and they ALL know what they mean.]    

One girl, who's in a theatre troupe that gives sex and sexuality presentations in junior and senior high schools, described how a certain principal had not allowed them to present part of their show. "It was 'too mature a subject' for his students."    
"How old were the students?" I asked.    
"Grade nine."     Someone else wanted to know which part had been prohibited. She suggested they guess.    
"Abortion?"    
nope.    
"Homosexuality?"    
nope    
"Sexual assault?"    
nope

   
Ummm... so what was it?    

"Masturbation."    

"WHAT?" One boy shouts out. "The one aspect of the whole presentation that they have the most experience with??"     General roar of laughter.    
[So sensible. No tittering, no squeamishness, but no prurience, either. Such a great bunch.]

And the movie they chose to watch? Monty Python's Holy Grail. Heh. In other circles, they'd be the geeks and the outcasts. Here, 'geek' is normal -- "normal" is boring. I love these kids.

Bigfeet live. And they're slobs.

Here we have a shoe rack:

Nothing exceptional about that. Every home has one, or some other accommodation for the footwear that cannot, given our climate/weather, be tromped throughout the house.

It takes years of consistent effort to convince your children that shoes do indeed need to be removed from one's person before one starts racing through the house, stomping up stairs, clambering up over the soft furnishings, leaving a trail of sand, mud, snow, slush, twigs, dust and dead bugs in one's wake. Parent work for years to get this drilled into them. Years.

Infancy: "Time to take those shoesies off. Oh, toes!! Let mummy nibble on those lovely little toes!!!"

Toddler: "Uh-oh! Did you forget to take your shoes off???"

School-age: "Where are you going with those shoes, young lady/man?"

But you know, eventually it does get drilled in, mostly, and by the time they're teens, they do start removing footware. Without even thinking about it!

And therein lies the problem. "Without even thinking about it." It's automatic. Mindless. Brainless.

In the picture at the top of this post? Every single one of those shoes on the rack? They belonged to either me or my husband...

The kids' shoes are here:

The picture does not do justice to the reality. These are LARGE shoes, people. LARGE. Many of them have ... odour issues. In fact, not all of the shoes associated with our brood are in this picture. One or two pairs lie on the porch, where I tossed them when the fumes threatened to kill the family pet. My entire front hall (yes, that's the whole thing), is carpeted in LARGE, STINKY SHOES. (And one random pair of socks. See them, up at the top? Socks. Can this possibly be a surprise?)

And while I must confess that the shoe rack is very obviously NOT up to the task of dealing with the staggering number of feet which inhabit this small house, the evidence is still very clear: Not one of those ambling, shambling teens-on-footwear-autopilot has made the slightest attempt to place their shoes where they would be out of the way.

It took years of diligent effort to get them to take the damned things off. It will take still more years of diligent effort to get them to LINE THEM UP AGAINST THE WALL! (Because remembering to put your shoes together, and to one side? So the next person in the door doesn't trip or drown? That's really, really complicated. Yes, really, it is! It must be complicated, hugely complicated, because these are NOT stupid kids. No, no they're not. Really. All shoe evidence to the contrary.)

A complicated task, then, that will take more years of diligent effort to drill into them. But, given that the youngest is 13, and they will be leaving the nest by 20 at the latest (Um, yes. Yes, they will. Every single stinky-footed one of them.), the sad truth of the matter is that I do not HAVE sufficient years in which to train them.

So, ladies and gentlemen, that second picture? That is a picture of the next seven years of my life.

Sigh.

I guess strangling him wouldn't improve his COMMUNICATION skills, would it?

Last fall, Daniel had a bit of a personal crisis. Though I got the bare bones of it, he didn't want to talk about it with His Mother. Could he please go see Dr. D, the psychologist his older sister had seen for a few months after the separation? (Who his sister still chats with once in a while.)

The sessions cost $155 an hour. This is not small change for me, parent of three, step-parent of five, living on one and one-fifth income. (Four-fifths of my husband's income is taken up by income tax, student loans, union dues and child support.) However, it's my child's well-being... And maybe the boy will learn some useful emotional and life skills. So, yes, of course you can see Dr. D, son.

After a couple of months, I asked how it was going. The crisis was comfortably over, and it is costing  $155 every week... My budget is feeling the pinch like a vice-grip applied to one's butt.

"Well," he said, "I like talking to her. It's nice."

("It's nice?" Um, no. NOT worth $155/week, son.)  Okay. Must probe a bit. "Can you give me some idea what you're talking about?"

"Well, mostly about communication."

My mind reels in delighted astonishment.

COMMUNICATION!!!!! My son was discussing COMMUNICATION! My son, my cheerful, easy-going, largely cooperative son, who can and will talk your ear off about a quirky cartoon or a computer game, becomes completely mute when conversation threatens to become personal. He will talk about personal stuff when it reaches the crisis point, and I take a great deal of satisfaction in that, but in the ordinary run of things? I get NOTHING, people, NOTHING. Shrugs, grunts, one-word non-answers.

My boy is getting an hour a week's tutorial in COMMUNICATING??

Worth every penny. Every single penny. I'm sure we can squeak the money out of the budget somehow. We don't really need to eat three times a day, after all. Do we? Surely twice would suffice.

It was worth it even more when, by dint of a doctor's prescription for psychotherapy, our insurance started paying the lion's share. (Thank you to smart doctor who thought of that. I didn't know therapy could be prescribed!! But why not?)

COMMUNICATION! My boy is getting lessons in COMMUNICATION! I envision that glorious day when "You feeling okay, sweetie? You look a little down," is answered with full, entire sentence! Yeah!

However, I'm still forking out a chunk of money every month. After six months, I decide it's time to  check in with the boy. And besides, I'm his mother. I love him. And I'm curious! I want to know what he thinks about it. I want to know how the experience is affecting him. I want to know what's going on inside his head, his thoughts, his responses.

I want COMMUNICATION.

Me: How are your sessions with Dr. D going?
Daniel: Fiiine. (Tones of mild suspicion.)
Me: Are you enjoying them?
Daniel: Yes. (Suspicion rising.)
Me: Do you feel you're getting anything out of them?
Daniel: Yeees. (Hint of defensive, self-protective edge to the voice.)

Longish pause. Will he divulge?
Pause continues.
And continues. And continues some more. My patience is rewarded by ... silence. He's not divulging. I will have to ask. Sigh.

Me: So, what do you think you’re getting out of them?
Pause.
Daniel: Well, that’s hard to say, really.

Six months working on "COMMUNICATION", and it's "HARD TO SAY" what he's getting out of these sessions.

Money well spent, wouldn't you say?

Muzzling the Mama Bear

When your children were little, the world was a simpler place. (Too bad you didn't know it at the time, huh?) Conflicts were simpler (more physical, more primitive, but simpler), conversation was simpler ("Say please." "NO."), decisions were simpler (red shirt or blue? is that a bead or a bean up his nose?).

When another child shoved your child, you could deal with that. You take them both by the hand, you explain that "hands are not for hitting", and you help them work it through. Simple.

When life buffeted my wee tots, I could offer solace: ice to the bo-bo, a kiss to make it better, a hug, a story, a distraction. Or throw the whining wretch in bed. Simple.

Last week, my youngest came home, very upset. Their French teacher had asked them to bring in the lyrics to a French song, which they would then analyze as part of a presentation due the following week. Bekah had gone in prepared with not just one but four songs. Keener points, anyone?

One of her songs was deemed unsuitable for the project, but the other three judged fine. Bekah chose one, and the teacher asked if the other two could be distributed to students who had not brought in songs. In other words, to students who had not completed the first task of the assignment.  No problem, says my girl. No skin off her nose.

Twenty minutes later the teacher returns, but this time sees something in Bekah's song that she hadn't noticed before.

"I'm sorry, but you won't be able to use that song after all."

No problem. She'd brought in four, after all, and there are still two good ones. "All right, then, I'll just use one of the other two."

"Oh, no. We can't do that. The other students have already been working on their songs for twenty minutes, and they'd have to start over again."

Let us pause a moment at this juncture so as to register the OUTRAGEOUS INJUSTICE of this statement.

I know, though I'm not sure my daughter does, that the issue is this teacher has trouble maintaining control over the class, and she knows that Bekah will give her much less flack than the two others will. Is this right? Is this fair?

IT IS NOT.

My inner Mama Bear rises in fury, but knowing that hearing her snarl tends to muzzle my children, I am calm as I probe, as casually as I can, for details. In short, Bekah protested but was over-ruled.

I AM OUTRAGED.

"I'm going to phone the school. I'll talk to the principal and that teacher! I can't believe this! That is completely unacceptable!"

You know what happened next, don't you?

"Mmmmooommm, NO!"

"Well, someone has to say something."

"No, they don't!" Her voice rises in panic. "She already hates me! That'll only make it worse!"

I don't believe the teacher hates her. I rather suspect she likes my responsible, reasonably studious child. I think the teacher's cowardice is driving her to take advantage of a compliant student. It's weaselly, but it's not personal. But will my protests make it worse? Will my active protests turn this woman against my child and make it personal? Quite possibly. I think she's that emotionally immature, yes.

"She shouldn't get away with it!" my Mama Bear roars. I wrestle her down. Barely.

"Mmmmooommm, NO!" It's one of the great frustration of parenting teens. They're old enough to want autonomy. They're old enough to need it, developmentally. Some of them are even mature enough to deserve it. Autonomy to make their own mistakes (and bear the consequences themselves), autonomy to make a lot of their own decisions (and bear the consequences themselves).

And old enough to fight their own battles. Even when they deal with the battle by ducking it.

ARGH. Mama Bear HATES that. Hates it, hates it, hates it.

So I back down. I try to have a conversation with the girl about what she might do, what her options are, but she's having nothing to do with it. She's viewing my interest as pressure to respond in a certain way -- and maybe she's got some justification there, but it's not the whole truth. But it is her conflict to resolve, her injustice to deal with.

So I back off. And I don't email the teacher. And I don't call the principal. I do rant a bit to my husband. Bekah goes back to school the next day with a song the teacher hasn't had time to approve, presents her assignment, and gets a very good mark. So there's that.

And, when the final exams are written, the assignments in, the marks secure and staff still at the school, will I be making a phone call and writing a letter?

You bet your ass I will.

Grrrrr.

I think she's wiser than her mother

I hear the giggles as I walk by her room. Bekah is chatting on Skype.

(She has no idea of the luxury of those limitless calls. Limitless long distance calls -- limitless because they're free. What will be the luxuries her children enjoy which bemuse her? What awaits my grandchildren?  (My potential, as yet entirely theoretical grandchildren?))

She is chatting with her friend Philippe. Philippe is the very likeable young man who spent a summer with us as an exchange student two years ago when he was 17 and Bekah not quite 13. English-speaking 17-year-olds from Ontario went to Quebec and New Brunswick to improve their French; French-speaking youths came here in exchange. A lanky young fellow with an exuberant mop of red curls, Pilippe's soft-spoken easy-going ways and good humour endeared himself to the entire family.

Bekah, it seems, endeared herself particularly to him.

They've kept in touch through emails and IM, and most recently with the free phone calls. The conversation just flows between those two. Hours and hours of it. He's held her hand (virtually) through a boyfriend and a breakup; she gives him (very sensible) advice re: family relationships and the appalling lack of greenery in his diet. I don't know what all else they might talk about over the hours. I'm not told.

I am of two minds about this relationship. I am not entirely comfortable with the amount of time she "spends" with him. Obviously, sex isn't an issue, which is a relief to me, because she's only fourteen. A physically mature fourteen, a very sensible and emotionally stable fourteen, but still fourteen. She spends a lot of time on this one relationship. I worry some about balance in her life. I keep an eye on her, making sure that other activities and relationships are not suffering as a result. They don't seem to be, but I keep a cautious maternal eye on her.

On the other hand, and this hand weighs heavily, I am very pleased that one of the most significant relationships in her life revolves entirely around conversation. They have no shared activities. They have shared interests, but, separated by a thousand kilometres or so, they can't do them together. The can't watch movies together. They do occasionally play internet games together, but not often.

What they do is talk. And talk and talk and talk.

Yes, I do haul her out of her room. She eats meals with the family, chores get done, homework is accomplished, she spends time every day chatting with me and spending time with her in-town friends. But she and Philippe talk. Every day.

I recall an occasion when her father came to visit me over Christmas break while we were still dating. We were in our early twenties, maybe even in our late teens, and had each gone to our respective families for the holidays. But ten days was too long for our love-struck hearts to be separated, so he drove the hour between our family homes to visit one day.

After spending some time with my family, we were desperate for some time alone, so we went for a drive, chatting idly about this or that thing out the window, and ended up having a coffee in a roadside diner somewhere. We sat on opposite sides of the table ... and the conversation shrivelled. We had nothing to say to each other. Nothing.

He held my hand. We smiled at each other. But we had nothing to say.

Why did I go ahead and marry this man, when conversation is so desperately important to me? Well, at the time I didn't really know that of myself, nor did I understand it would be absent in the marriage. I didn't know a lot of things at 19 or 20.

It took twelve years of a conversation-free marriage to teach me how my soul craves conversation. Not just mindless words, words, words tossed out, cluttering the air -- though there's certainly a place for casual, idle, and functional chatter. But conversation: a steady flow of interest in the other, the exchange of ideas, the building-up of new ideas as a joint creative enterprise.

To me, that's the bedrock of a relationship. Fundamental, foundational, indispensible.

And for twelve years, I lived without it.

I married him because I was young and naive and "in love". We loved each other! Conversation would come, right? I didn't realize that "in love" would not create something that didn't exist. I didn't realize that "in love" would parch to dust and blow away in the desert of silence and strictly-functional communication.

Bekah, in her room, chatters away. There is no lack of conversation with those two. There are no arid silences, no unbridged gaps between two solitudes.

So, though the amount of time she spends with this one friend does cause me some concern, the quality of the relationship reassures. If he is going to become someone significant in her life -- someone even more significant -- they are going about it the right way.

But I'm still glad he lives in New Brunswick.

Priorities in Parenting, or, how to drive your teen crazy

My husband has been working from home today, and dedicated worker bee that he is, he is about to hop on his bike and go get us both a coffee. I am kissing him goodbye at the door.

We do not peck on the cheek, he and I. A good rule of thumb for kisses is one second per year of connubial (or co-habitory, as the case may be) bliss. People get this backward all the time. Have you ever noticed that? One endless kisses when they've been together ninety seconds; half-second seconds when they've been together forty years.

Utterly backward.

However, I run a daycare in my home. Five toddlers, ten hours a day, five days a week. (Yes, I am also the woman with three children and five step-children. And somehow, I am still sane. Am too, am too!)

When you have a houseful of toddlers, a multi-second kiss will always, always be interrupted. Always. But we are hardy, experienced, committed kissers, my man and I. We re not to be diverted from our appointed take by a mere piping voice or a tug on a pant leg. The kids have to learn their place in the grand scheme of things.

What multi-second kisses mean in a house full of teens is dramatic and copious moaning and groaning. This, too, is ignored. If the moaning and groaning gets louder and aggressive, the kisses get even more so. Teens, too, have to learn their place. Parental affection is a Good Thing.

So. I am kissing me man goodbye at the door.

One of the daycare tots trots up. Of course. The piping voice is ignored. The tug on the pant leg likewise. Also the tug on his pant leg. She is nothing if not persistent. She doesn't attempt violence against our persons; she knows better than that. She attempts conversation.

"What's your name, Ilona? Ilona, what's your name?"

Now, my man and I, being not only experienced, committed kissers, but also experienced, (soon-to-be committed) parents, have had a lifetime experience dealing with this. She does not get an answer. On the contrary. Interruptions ensure the kiss lasts longer. Now, you see, we have to keep it up until she's quiet.

Adults have the right to affection. Parents have the right to focus on each other exclusively from time to time.  Loving parents ensure a happy home, and this is good for everyone. So. "No Interrupting Grown-up Smooching" is an Important Life Lesson.

"Ilona? What's your name?" Besides, call me cynical, but I have a suspicion this isn't a sincere conversational gambit.

Mmm. He is a very good kisser. Rebekah, reading on the couch, is studiously ignoring us. See how well we've trained even our teens in appropriate response to adult affection? Hard to know how she can see the page, though, what with her eyes rolled up to the back of her head like that...

Ah, but the tot is quiet, finally, and I have to come up for air.

"Yes, sweetie? What did you want?"  (Yes, I know I've heard the question several times by now. It's the Principle of the Thing.)

"What's your name?"

"Her name," my man pipes up most helpfully, "is ..." He puts his palm across his mouth and makes elaborate cartoon kiss-noises, the squeaky balloon of romance,

"SSSSSSSMMMMMMOOOOOOOCH!"

Rebekah can bear it no longer, and races in disgust from the room. "GAH!"

Parenting is such fun!

When you have eight kids...

"So, mom? Nick and I are thinking of getting an apartment together in September."

Adam stands before me, all six feet of his 19-year-old self, his brown eyes calm. No anxiety, no "how will mom take this" in his face.

Between the two of us, my husband and I have eight kids.

Mothers tremble when their babies leave the nest. Good mothers do. They worry, they ache, their soul yearns for the child-turning-adult who is leaving. Because at nineteen, he thinks he's an adult, but a parent knows better. Not a child, nor yet quite an adult. So much room for disappointment, confusion, mistakes. How will he cope with the world out there? How will the world treat him?

And how will mom cope without him? The big, gaping hole in the nest. A major centre of your life, gone.

When my eldest left the nest, she was comfortably sure I'd cry. Comfortably sure. She clearly liked the idea. It was a reasonable assumption, too: all her other friends' mothers had cried, and me? I sure fit the mold of the type who'd cry. I stayed hom with my kids all their lives. At first, I had a husband to support us finanacially; I did a day or two a week supply teaching. Then, a single mother, I supported the family by working from home during the week. For the first exhausting, financially desperate year of the separation, I worked seven days a week: at home Monday - Friday, then away from home on weekends.

I homeschooled for the first ten years of their lives. I was there. A single parent, a work-at-home parent, a home-schooling parent. And I loved it. I love being a stay-at-home mom. I loved homeschooling them. I even loved being a single parent. It was a helluva lot easier than parenting in the frightening, draining emotional maelstrom that had increasingly been my first marriage. Being with my kids has always felt natural, seemed right, has been just so comfortable for me.

I'm a good mother. And good mothers cry when their babies leave home.

"So mom? Nick and I are thinking of getting an apartment together in September."

When you have eight kids, it's not so much an empty nest...

And through my head run threads of thoughts. "That gives me three and a half months to try to teach him some financial sense ... budgeting, the boy needs to learn to budget ... the basement room will be empty, wonder if his sister will want it?... good thing he has a decent job ... wonder if Nick'll get into college ... lordy, that apartment will be a pit ... no more tripping over giant boots in the entry ... how often will he come to visit ... can give him that box of china in the back porch ... will we need to rent a truck?"

All sorts of things.  But ...

I'll let you in on a secret: I don't cry. I don't even worry overmuch, and I certainly don't pine. In fact, the primary feeling in every case -- and this will be the fourth -- has been relief.

Because really, what is the goal of parenting but to raise considerate, functional, contributing adults? Considerate, functional, contributing adults who will leave home? So when they go, that's another milestone accomplished on time, another sign I'm doing it right, yes?

I have some worries. I know the boy's foibles and weaknesses. I'm fully aware of certain things that are going to cause him problems. I will observe, as much as I'm allowed, with a mother's concerned eye. I will offer, as much as I'm allowed, advice and support. But, and this causes an unadulterated bubble of glee within me:  As of September, we could possibly be down to one child in full-time residence in the house.

Imagine the freedom!

More food: no more discovering the meat for an evening's meal for the entire family has been consumed by foraging male in search of after-work "snack".

More space: no more clutter of enormous footwear in the front hall.

Less worry: he can wander in at 2 a.m., and I won't know anything about it.

More space: a freed-up basement bedroom, which my youngest will likely snatch means a freed-up bedroom on the second floor -- which means ... oh, be still my heart ... a study for me!

Less worry: he can omit to call home when he's going to be late, and I won't be the one wondering where he is.

More space: no more office in the dining room!!

I wonder how he'll do, if his inherent slovenliness and Nick's inherent tidiness can happily co-exist; if he'll be able to juggle school and work; if he has the discipline to meet deadlines in a timely fashion. I make contingency plans. If he has trouble managing his finances, I can do A, B, and C. If he fails a course, or even a term, before he learns to effectively manage his time, we can do X, Y,and Z.

I am not unconcerned. I will not be uninvolved. I will always, always be there for him.

But I am miles and miles and miles away from tears.

My son might be moving out in September!!!

When you have eight kids, it's not so much an empty nest as it is the light at the end of the tunnel.

Oops...

by Ilona

Great excitement in the Ilona household today! Bekah and I finally got around to trying out the cookie press we bought at the Pampered Chef party a month ago.

(Note to self: Do NOT take enthusiastic and social teen to party at which one might be tempted to spend outrageous amounts of money on luxury goods. Enthusiastic and social teens are so damned appealing that it is very hard to say "NO. No, we will NOT be purchasing the cookie press at $41.50, and we will even more so NOT be purchasing the $40.00 deep dish pie plate, even if it IS in a very pretty cranberry and even if you DO love pies and even if you WILL make pies yourself -- AND clean up the kitchen, mum, really!!!"

It is very difficult to say NO to all that sweet and sincere enthusiasm without looking like a total wet-blanket drip of a mother in front of a room full of completely besotted adults. "Isn't she cute? My 14-year-old is never so sweet and enthusiastic.")

So we haul the cookie press out from under the counter. We mix up the recipe included with the kit. We ooo and aaaah over all the different shapes.

We learn a bunch of stuff, too. We learn that you need to set the press flush against the cookie sheet. Flush. And press the handle once, and only once. We learned that it is wise to scrape the exterior surface of the disk after every couple of cookies. We learned that if you tip the barrel up, you will get air bubbles in the batter. We learned that when you change disks, you need to tap the barrel to get the dough to settle against the disk again.

We learned so very, very many things!

Then we set the three dozen cookies into the pre-heated oven. And within three minutes, we have learned another, VERY important cookie-press lesson. When you are preparing cookie-press dough, you may not (NOT!) substitute margerine for butter:

Ahem.

It's not mind-reading, it's just good housekeeping

Teens. Value their privacy, they do. They don't want adults, parents in particular, knowing the ins and outs of their private lives. My kids are better than most, I think. They share quite a bit with me. Not, perhaps, the very second it happens, but I generally know the important stuff that's going on. But do they share every heartbeat? No. Do they keep things from me? Of course they do. Just as I keep parts of my life private from them. It's adult-to-near-adult courtesy.

It's also self-preservation. For the most part, I don't want to know the details. I remember the soap opera that is high school, and I don't miss it. I have no interest in plunging back into that seething slough of hormones and angst, not even vicariously. Bad enough when they bring their seething sloughs of hormones and angst home.

It doesn't matter though, because even when they think they're keeping things from me, I know. I'll always know. Always. It's not that the kids are so open and honest with me. It's not a mystical connection. It's not that I have a mother's second sight, woman's intuition, ESP, nor even eyes in the back of my head. None of those.

Nope.

My secret?

My kids never pick up after themselves.

I can tell at a glance what they had for their afternoon snack. (Orange juice, bagel with cheese, banana.) I know where they shop. (American Eagle, Garage, Dynamit)  I know how much junk food they eat. (More than they should.) I know about teacher interviews they'd rather I didn't. Because they leave the evidence everywhere. On the counter, on the couch, on the dining table, on the floor of the front hall. While I despair of their slovenly ways (and blame my lack of strict training in their early years), I'd miss all this insight if they became suddenly tidy.

My son Daniel (18) has a girlfriend. Lovely girl. They've been together four months or so. So, being a responsible parent, I casually remind the boy young man of our safe sex talks, and further remind the boy young man where the condoms are kept. (In a cosmetics bag on a shelf by the bathroom door, refilled without counting. He knows this. It's been there for about five years, since his older sister was a little younger than he is now.)

"Don't worry, mom. I know where they are, but we haven't gotten there yet."

Do I believe him? Not really. It's possible, but, given how they spend any private moment so thoroughly entwined, not likely. Bottom line, though, it's his business. As long as he's using the damned condoms!

My kids are responsible to do their own laundry. Thus, if I shift their laundry from the washer to the dryer, or from the dryer to a laundry basket, they know I'm doing them a favour. It's a good system.  Today it's Daniel whose laundry need to be shifted from washer to dryer so I can start my own load.

There at the bottom of the drum, under the wet darkness of the laundry I'm hauling out, I catch a glimmer of something white and shiny. A tidy little condom-packet. Not one of the dark foil packs from the cosmetic bag on the shelf by the bathroom. White plastic, and -- ugh -- banana-flavoured. Definitely not one of the house stock. Guess he doesn't believe me when I say we don't count them. Hell, I wouldn't believe me, either.

But now I know. I always do.