Mid-CenturyModernMoms

Arguing over food

My twins are very very different. Like Patty Duke, they're different as night and day. My son is a big galoot of a guy, tall, big boned, a bit chunky, blond hair and blue eyes. He's kinda geeky, introverted, a bit socially awkward, smart as a whip, and so freaking obnoxious he could win prizes.

My daughter is petite, sweet and loving, with such a potty mouth you could just keel over. She's very social, but not adept socially. She has tons of friends, is an extrovert of grand proportions, can't stand to not be doing SOMETHING fun every second of the day, and she's a bit of a dim bulb sometimes. With dark hair and dark eyes, her olive skin makes people assume she's from another culture quite a bit.

The one thing that really sets them apart, and makes them argue more than any other topic is food. OMG you would think they were starving African refugees they way the act around food. My son eats anything that is not nailed down. He is relentless in his ability to eat and eat and eat. Even when he knows that the food he's eating is earmarked for a celebration (say the bowl of potato salad for today's picnic for July 4th) or something that was purchased just for me or the Girl. He will eat anything, even when he knows there will be consequences. He just doesn't care. He is an eating machine. Plus he has no interest in setting something aside if he wants to eat it. His impulsivity around food makes for more trouble than anything else.

His sister is not a big eater, nor does she like most foods. What she does like, she protects viciously. She labels things, she hides food, she will do anything to reserve food for herself. Unfortunately, her brother has no respect for her and will search her room if he's on the lookout for candy or sweets. She always has candy or sweets hidden.

My daughter has taken to counting food. If you ever wanted to live with a really annoying person, find a food counter. It could drive you right into the gin bottle. She knows how much there is of everything, and if there is one morsel missing, she's sure to comment upon it. If she's out, when she returns the first thing she does is take inventory of what he's eaten. She counts everything and nothing escapes her eagle eye.

Now, try and imagine living with this pair. She knows if one crumb of pie is missing and he will eat an entire pie if he can possibly not get caught. It's like living in a constant battle zone. I try to make both sides a bit more respectful of each other, but in truth my son is not going to stop eating like every hour is his last meal and she's not going to accept that he's in this huge growth spurt and needs the food intake. They're not nice to each other. They say hurtful things and in honestly, cannot understand the other's position at all. Or even want to. They're content to keep fighting over food. It gives them something to do.

If truth be told, I'm very concerned about my son's lack of sensitivity regarding food. It drives me absolutely bonkers that he will eat things that he KNOWS are earmarked for a celebration or a special occasion. In our house, he will eat all the leftovers knowing that I might want them for lunch. He'll eat all the ice cream in the house, leaving none for anyone else. Whole containers of cookies disappear. Whole loaves of bread vanish without a trace. He takes food up to his room and leaves the dishes up there until I go ballistic because we have no dishes, glasses or silverware left. The kid is that rude and insensitive.

I can't force him to stop. He doesn't really care that this bothers me and his sister. Stuffing his face is way more important than trying not to take what isn't his. So I have no clue as to how to get them to make peace over food. She's furious that everything she wants to eat disappears before she has a chance to even get a taste. He's furious that we're always pissed at him for taking food and eating it all.

Is there any way to solve this? I can't think of one.

The Pros And Cons Of Raising Teenagers

Yes. Believe it or not, there are several advantages to parenting teens. Let's see if I can pull my brain together enough to get a few down here.

The positive list is first. The negative/educational list is later.

1. Teens are addicted to computers. If you own several computers the teens will leave you alone until the cows come home. That means they forget about food and phone calls and television. You can watch what you like, eat whatever you want and even talk on the phone without being bothered.

2. Teens sleep in, every day. This means you can sleep in as well, assuming you don't have a job to go to or a class... The house is very quiet when the teens are sleeping, nice and silent.

3. Teens will always eat pizza. If you forget to make dinner, pizza is only a phone call away.

4. Teens leave their dirty clothes on the floor. If you have a dirty carpet~NO ONE will ever know. They cannot see the carpet through the clothes.

5. Teens like to stay up late. You will never feel lonely again at 2am. Your teen will be awake with you.

6. Teens love to eat late at night. Here's your excuse for a midnight snack. "Oh hi honey, I was just making the kids some food." (He/she'll never know you planned on eating as well.)

7. Teens are messy everywhere~this means you can blame them even if you made the mess. This is very handy if you have a spouse who's anal-retentive.

8. Teens NEVER fill the gas tank. Something else you can blame on them. "Sweetie, I just filled it. Fido must have used the car and all the fuel I put in it."

9. Teens forget to turn off lights. You'll never come home to a dark house while you have teens.

10. Teens eat lots. When they are old enough to drive, they are old enough to do the grocery shopping for you. This is very advantageous for those of us who detest grocery shopping.

For all of you who have younger children or no children, let's talk about teens. Don't be scared...well, really smart parents are scared. Teenagers are frickin' scary!

Janice's not-so-well-known facts about teenagers.

1. Teens are full of drama and angst and over-reaction. Full of it. When BBB was 13/14 all I had to do is glance his way to elicit this angry response: "What? WHAT? Why are looking at me thatway?" Dang boy I was flipping my hair off my face. I did not even mean to look his way. YIKES. The really fun days were when he got home from junior high, slammed the front door shut and stomped right on past me. The best way to react: IGNORE their presence until they seem calmer.

2. Just when you you get a grip on how to handle new and exciting behaviors, they change. Get to used to it. At 19 BPB still does this. Life with a teen is rarely if ever predictable.

3. Be prepared to have your teen ignore you and if anyone they know is close by they will pretend that have never seen you before. DO NOT embarrass your child by saying Hello to anyone. Pretend to be invisible!(I, personally, love messing with my teens' minds, so I would always introduce myself to anyone that was even close by.)

4. (AHEM)If male teens spend extra time in the bathroom do not knock on the door and scream, "What is taking you so long in there??". Trust me on this one.

5. Teens love to think they are independent. They will want you to drive them to and fro, here and there, up and downtown and everywhere but they will want you to let them go out of the car without a kiss goodbye, without you sticking your head out the window and screaming: "Hey my honeybabysugar! I love you!!!" This will cause your teen to turn beet red and flee from sight rapidly, maybe never to return. ( No suck luck. They always come home~they know where the money and food are.)

6. Teens sleep ALOT! Particularly boys between the ages 13-17. My BBB took naps last summer because he was so tired from growing. They will grow! One day you need to look down to meet their eyes. The next day they are looking down at you. It's disconcerting.

7. Teens eat 24 hours, 7 days a week. Not kidding! Get ready to serve up seconds and thirds and fourths. Also try to have snacks on hand at all times. Teens are hungry at 12 noon and 12 midnight. Just stock up! My food bill is 4 times what it was when the boys were younger.

8. Teens lie. If they get caught red-handed they will deny, deny, deny. Dr. Phil says, "How do you know if your teens are lying to you? Their lips are moving."I find this to be true in older teens the most.

9. BIG WARNING HERE: Expect your teen to go from acting like a 14yo to a 2yo in 30 seconds or less. No warnings. Temper tantrums, inability to make decisions, crying for no reason, slamming doors and stomping their feet.I think that is enough for now. You are most likely thinking it might be a good idea to sell your 10yos on the black market.....don't even dream about it. Teens always get returned to owner.

Two different stories, one hurting kid

I attend a support group for parents of 'difficult' adolescents. Which isn't really what it is at all, incidentally. All of the parents who attend this group have kids with some type of mental or emotional disorder. We have depressed kids, suicidal kids, bipolar kids, kids with rare genetic disorders, kids who just don't fit any mold. The thing all these kids have in common is that they've been hospitalized, many multiple times, because they were either a danger to themselves or a danger to others. Oh, and they all have parents who are tearing their hair out in frustration trying to figure out just what to do.

We're a fairly tight knit group of moms. We not only support each other in our quest to find the best care for each of our respective kids, we attend each other's school meetings, visits to special programs, and just to hang out and give each other hugs. In the short time I've been part of this group, I've made a good friend, and I've gotten a lot of great advice. It's really a fabulous support group.

So what's the but?

Today, for the first time, we had a dad come to our meeting. It wasn't a big deal that he was male, as we're all grown ups. He is a single dad and he introduced us to his daughter (figuratively) who is a hurting buckaroo for a variety of reasons. We all encouraged him to take certain types of actions, we listened to his story, we were more than supportive to him, we didn't scare him off, and he promised to return.

And the problem is?

Oy! Privacy. My favorite issue. His daughter and my son were in a program together. A program that encourages the kids to share their issues with the small group. What my son knows of this girl is not essentially what the father reported to our group. This makes me VERY uncomfortable. Because I know things about her that her father doesn't, from the things my son reported. But it gets even more uncomfortable. While my son was in this program, another friend of his who we'll call Dirty (because he is) was also at the program. Dirty and my son have known each other for years. Dirty and this man's daughter evidentially had it in for each other, and when Dirty came over during this time, he talked a lot about this particular girl. Now, I had no clue I'd EVER meet this girl's parent. They live hours away from us. Who would have thunk it? But damn... the girl who was a big topic of conversation in our house for weeks is this guy's daughter. Doesn't that suck?

I know I need to keep my mouth shut. I'm not completely idiotic. But I feel incredibly uncomfortable knowing some things that her father SHOULD know, but apparently doesn't. His daughter is in a lot of emotional pain for reasons totally unknown to him. But not to me. And if that doesn't bite, I don't know what does.

That's one of the problems with your kids being in programs. So much is shared, some of it the truth, some of it false, but a lot of it just plain painful. They're encouraged to get their pain out their, to acknowledge it and then move on. The groups help these kids to learn coping mechanisms, to recognize where their behavior comes from, and to be able to grow from their problems. Those are all good things. But the problem is that the kids gossip both amongst themselves, and they often come home and bitch about the other kids in the program. Which is exactly what happened here. My kid and Dirty weren't outing this girl. They were talking about how tough she was to deal with, and during those discussions, personal things were revealed.

So, here I am, brimming with information I wish I didn't have and not knowing what to do with it. Any advice?

Mixed Messages

So much is going on at our house that I feel the need to unburden myself or I'm gonna 'splode from all the information overload. There's good news, there's bad news, there's insanity, and there is relative calm. Oh, and there are two nutty teenagers that live to change the equilibrium at any given moment. Because, you know, they're teens!

So what's new?

The Boy made high honor roll in school. HIGH HONOR ROLL. You have no idea of the nachas this gives me. I'm so very proud of him for finally, after 11 years in school, buckling down and deciding to maybe, perhaps, um...do his work. Because that's a good idea if you're trying to get into college, isn't it?

But is he happy? Why no, because I'm a bitch to him and I never do anything nice for him and he hates me and hopes I have a heart attack and die. He's just a bundle of joy these days. I'm so sick of being screamed at I just want to duct tape his mouth shut. I won't, but don't think I don't fantasize about it. And just what is it that he's so angry about? Oh, I had the unmitigated gall to ask him to dig up some weeds in the garden. Last week. And then again every freaking day. But he won't do it, and he says that he gets no pleasure from gardening, so why should he do it? Um, maybe because you eat the food I grow from my garden? Could that be a good reason? Evidentially not.

And then there was that party. The one my darling son held while I was out of town. The one he was told not to even THINK about. But he did it anyways, and there was alcohol and probably pot and a whole bunch of kids spread all over our front hill. How did I find out about the party? Well, first I found an empty liter bottle of gin in his closet. That was a fun discussion. And because I am the suspicious type (do you wonder why?), I checked his Facebook page. Facebook is awesome for catching kids doing bad things. They're so dumb they leave up photos of the parties. All you have to do is follow the photos. I did, and lo and behold, that was our porch with my son holding a beer can looking particularly wasted on a friends photo set. Ahem. I could probably get a job with Scotland Yard. I'm that good.

Consequently, things are up and down with him. School = good. Home = bad.

The other one? The Girl? She's gonna drive me absolutely bonkers writing a paper on a book she read for school. She hated the book. So what else is new? She hates reading of all kinds. Sort of a disappointment for a serious book lover and writer like myself, but what can I do? Her father is an engineer. Say no more.

The deal is, if she persists in whining and nagging and complaining, at some point I'll come to her rescue just to shut her up. Guilty as sin, I am. But gosh, how much whining can one person take? My tolerance is low, apparently.

Her schooling is coming along despite the fact that her tutor is dyslexic (I know!) and not overly bright. Sweet as sugar and helpful as can be, but OMG, I eventually insert myself in the tutoring sessions in English because otherwise my kid would be learning the wrong stuff. Math and science, I'm not that worried about. The kid is doing fine in school.

However, the school. Well, as nice as they are about my son, they're nasty and unpleasant and totally unhelpful to my daughter. They do not like her. They do not like green eggs and ham either. Well, the feeling is mutual. Not about the green eggs, although I doubt I'd like those either. About the school administration. They are not nice to me, to her, and they're driving me beserko.

And then there's me. I'm doing ok, hanging in there. We're going as a family to Chicago in a couple of days for an event sponsored by Ford Motor Company. You would think that traveling with teenagers would be a piece of cake compared to toddlers and infants. Well... you would probably be wrong. The preparation before the trip is exhausting. We're being feted at a fancy restaurant for a Mother's Day dinner, which meant that we had some shopping to do.

The Boy has outgrown every single piece of clothing he owns, so we had to get him pants and shirts and a pair of shorts just in case the weather ever cleared up in Chicago. Apparently the weather will never clear up in Chicago. Sigh.

The Girl only owns summer dresses that fit well. And no decent pants. More shopping. Like the Girl, my only dress that is currently in style and that fits after a major weight loss is a strapless summer frock. Off to another store to get me something springy but with sleeves and a bit of skin coverage. I hate to shop, I hate to spend money on clothes, and I hate to take my kids shopping. So this week was really swell. 

Oh, and the allergies. The allergies! We all are suffering. The sniffles, the nosebleeds, the itchy eyes, the rashes.

All in all, a jolly good time at our house! So what's going on with you?

The Feminine Mystique

By Melanie Lynne Hauser

Lately there have been strange creatures in our house.

They giggle and flip their hair and smell a lot nicer than the usual creatures we attract.

They're girls.

This is a new development in our lives.  Younger son's social life has gone in a new direction lately; he has a girlfriend and moves in a crowd that's more co-ed than his usual group.  They're all good kids, band kids, he likes to remind us whenever we commence one of our periodic lectures about responsible sex and good choices and the whole "your entire life is ahead of you" kind of thing. 

And it's true; their activities are wholesomely sweet.  (For example, one weekend they all parked in front of the flat screen to watch what they called "all the old classic movies."  I, of course, thought they were going to pop in a DVD of Casablanca or Citizen Kane.  Instead, they sighed with nostalgia over Free Willy and Space Jam.  I guess every generation's definition of "classic" is different.)

Now, you have to understand.  Our house has been a girl-free zone forever.  (And I don't count myself as a girl because my kids and my husband certainly don't.  They've all grown to think of me as a short, cranky boy who sometimes cross dresses.)

So for over a decade - at least since first grade, when both boys discovered girls had cooties - we've gotten used to playing host (or to put it more accurately, zoo keeper) to packs of boys.  Boys who stink, who fart, who burp, who eat lots and lots of our food, who knock things over and break things and - here's a very important part - don't pay any attention at all to their surroundings.

But all of a sudden, we're playing host and hostess - properly, uncomfortably - to girls.  Dainty little creatures.  And both my husband and I are a little unsure of ourselves.

I find myself fussing around the house more.  I sweep, dust, straighten up whenever I know they're coming.  I clean the downstairs bathroom more often.  I've burned through a ton of fragrant candles.  I make sure I have some makeup on, and my hair is combed, and I don't have food sticking to my shirt.

I just take much more care.

And I didn't really notice that I was doing this until the other day.  As a group of them were downstairs, playing videogames (band geeks, remember?), my husband came up to me, speaking softly.

"Do you?"  He began.  He cleared his throat, glanced nervously downstairs, and began again.  "Um, do you, like, behave differently?  Now?  With - you know," he blushed a bit.  "Girls in the house?"

"Oh, yes!"  I was so relieved he felt the same way.  "I do!  It's so weird, isn't it?"

"Totally.  Do you think," he said, with another nervous cough as he looked sadly down at his clothes.  "Do you think I should change?  This is kind of messy, isn't it?"

I looked at him - sweat pants, white T-shirt, unshaven, a mess.   When my husband works from home, he rarely gets dressed before dinner.  I nodded.

"I know," he sighed, going upstairs.  "I thought so.  I guess I should change."

"You might want to shave, too," I called up after him.  Although I wasn't sure it would matter; since the arrival of the girls, my husband has taken to shutting himself up in his office.

Now, you have to understand.  My husband generally rejoices in being the big, embarassing, goofy dad.  When the boys' friends are over, he roams among them comfortably, telling bad jokes, teasing, rumpling hair, doing pratfalls.  He just loves it.

But with the girls - ah.  That's different.  He hides.  He just doesn't know what to do, how to act.  After all, he hasn't had to impress a girl in twenty years.  It's like everything he ever used to know, when it comes to behaving around the opposite sex, has just vanished.  Marriage has reduced him to a twelve-year-old boy again.

But I'm the opposite.  With the boys, I usually ignored them, let them be, coming down only when I hear the telltale sound of things breaking or spilling.  And even when I hear that, I simply look up from whatever I'm doing, sigh, and yell, "Clean it up!"  Then I go on about my business. 

But with the girls, I feel as if I should be a good hostess; as if I should circulate.  I constantly pop in, asking if anyone needs anything - drinks, food, the thermostat turned up or down.  I circle them nervously - not the least because I know, in a way my husband doesn't because he didn't have the social life I did in high school, that a chaperone is what's needed these days.   In addition to a hostess.

When the girls leave, though - we let out big sighs of relief.  And relax, and become ourselves, our normal, easygoing, bad-joke-telling, boy-parent selves, again.

It's not that we don't enjoy this new phase in our lives.  We do.  It's just that it's - different.  Girls are just different.  Than boys.  Which, of course, is the whole point, isn't it?

It's so interesting to see how this sudden influx of feminity has thrown us both - including me, the one without a "y" chromosome - off our beam.  How we view teenage girls as these strange, exotic creatures we have to be so very careful around.

Sometimes I miss the boys, to tell the truth.  A couple of weekends ago a new, exciting videogame was released and my son brought a pack of his guy friends over for an all-night tournament.  I loved it.  I couldn't stop smiling.  They stank, they yelled, they ate everything, they broke things, but I didn't care.  It was just so good to have them back.

But even so, I ached a little with nostalgia as I shouted "Clean it up!"  Because their time is passing.  It's going to be girls from now on, and I'd better get used to it.

And really, I tell myself as I stock up on fragrant candles and force myself to buy some fashionable new outfits - I noticed last week that all the girls were wearing ballet flats so I guess they're "in" - anything that gets my husband to shower and dress before dinner can only be a good thing.

Even if it's a feminine thing.    

What happened to my little helpers?

A major Jewish holiday, Passover, is starting on Saturday night. With the onset of Passover comes an amazing amount of household work. Not only does every single corner of the house have to be cleaned to rid every room of possible leavened products, but the dishes, silverware, pots and pans, and utensils all have to be changed. This means emptying out your kitchen and replacing everything with special Passover dishes, etc. Wow, what fun this is. Next comes covering your counters with tin foil or plastic so your Passover dishes don't touch a counter that has touched leavened products. Your kitchen ends up looking like a space ship gone insane with all the tin foil.

Once all that is done, and you're suitably exhausted, it's time to cook two HUGE dinners for large crowds of family and friends. Special foods. Foods that contain no leavening, and are made of odd things like matzah meal and potato starch. Everything cooked from scratch because the prepared products are disgusting. Salty, tasteless, and scary.

Now, when my teens were little, they were great helpers. They would get all excited about turning over the kitchen, especially when they got to the tape. Taping the tin foil down is evidentally a way cool thing for a kid to do. Both of my kids liked to help with the cooking. They weren't all that excited about the cleaning, but they understood that no cleaning meant no cooking and no eating...for a week. Um, yeah. I could always count on them to peel potatoes, carrots and apples. They liked to chop up spices and vegetables. They are both decent cooks, as I have always had them help me with dinners as well as special meals.

But this year? Help? They think not. Both of them have been completely resistant to helping out. When I call them down for a quick job, it's always "five more minutes" or "I"ll do it later". And then they never come down. So of course, the nagging starts, and with the nagging comes the kids yelling back at me and calling me all sorts of delightful names. I get mad, they get madder, I get madder still, and things just don't get done.

I've make everything myself so far, and the rule has always been that nobody eats ANYTHING unless they make sure that it's OK to eat now and not for the Seders. This isn't a new rule, it's the same rule we've always had. But my son... he doesn't follow rules anymore. Rules are made for other people, not for him. He's special, you see. Specially obnoxious. He went through the Passover food bags and helped himself liberally to things that were not for him. Like an entire Passover rainbow layer cake. Oh, and an entire jar of chocolate spread (It's an Israeli thing). But this was the real kicker. He ate a huge bowl of chopped liver. Not only doesn't he like chopped liver, but it wasn't even finished. I hadn't put it thru the blender yet and it was big chunks of liver, onions, and hard-boiled eggs. YUM! He pronounced it disgusting but at the whole bowl anyways, because he was 'hungry.' 

I'm ready to strangle him. I miss my little helpers. Yes, they made huge messes in my kitchen, but sharing the holiday preparations with my kids was delightfully special. I loved watching their kitchen skills progress, their interest in combining ingredients grown, and their ability to change a recipe to suit our tastes take hold. I don't like these snarling teenagers that just want to take, take, take and do little to nothing in return. I know it's a phase, but do I have to like this phase? Because right now, I do not like it at all.

Skin Hunger

by Laura Benedict

The year before Pom was born, I began writing my first novel. I finished it eight years later and called it SKIN HUNGER. It was never published, but I still love the title. Now there’s a YA novel of the same name that’s all about wizards and such, so it may be a while before I use it myself.

I picked up the title from a paragraph in a parenting book I’ve long forgotten. Skin hunger is such an evocative phrase, isn’t it? It’s exactly what it sounds like it might be: the elemental emotional and physiological need for human touch.

How we love to touch our babies. They seem to bloom at our touch—and they really do! When children are not touched, they suffer. If you know much at all about the history of WWII, you’ll remember the stories of the German children taken away by (or given to) the Nazis to be raised as Aryan exemplars: they were considered too precious to be sullied by the touch of other humans. Most of these children either died before adolescence or suffered severe emotional problems.

We need to be touched. We crave to be touched. We cannot live unless we are touched—frequently and lovingly.

The other night, Pom’s boyfriend, Ruger, was visiting. I think we were watching Pinky and the Brain or some other edifying cartoon on television. The two of them were sitting on the couch, and Ruger had his arm around her; she was completely relaxed with him, her head against the front of his shoulder, one of her feet up on the coffee table, and she was holding one of his hands. I had never seen her so physically close to a guy besides her father or grandfather ever before, and I was a little startled. (Bengal, my eight year-old son was scrunched companionably against Ruger’s other side, too.) But of course she’s going to eventually be physically close with people outside our family. It’s the healthy thing.

Pom is sixteen. We have very frank discussions about her father’s and my expectations for her dating behavior. Remember, this is the girl who called us last year when she got her first kiss. She told me just the other day that she laughs every time a doctor asks her if she’s sexually active, and says they always look at her like they don’t believe she isn’t. She takes her (Christian) faith commitment very seriously and it is essential to her attitude toward her sexuality.

Teenage sexual promiscuity is certainly nothing new. Our generation didn’t invent it. Our parents didn’t, and their parents didn’t. But I wonder how much teenage sexual activity isn’t simply a replacement for the touch these kids are craving, the touch they’re no longer getting from their families.

I touch my kids a lot. Pom still holds my hand sometimes when we’re at the mall, and now that Bengal is taller than he was even six months ago, I can rest my arm around his shoulders as we walk (I know this isn’t going to last long, so I’ll enjoy it while I can.). They still occasionally wander into our bedroom on a Saturday morning and pile onto our bed. I can’t pick them up anymore, but I can still be near them—for a while, anyway.

It’s appropriate for my kids to extend that touch outside our family. Pom is very physical with her girl friends, too. There are “no touching” rules for boys and girls at her school, but the girls are very cozy with one another. (Pom jokes that it would be a great school in which to be a lesbian, but, oh my, her little school is so not ready for that!) I’m glad that Pom is comfortable enough in her own skin to be appropriately close to other people.

I didn’t handle my own teenage skin hunger very well, which is what that first novel was all about. I’m very proud of the way Pom is handling hers. Bengal is more of a work in progress, and we’ll give him all the cuddling he needs for a long time to come—though given his comfortable attitude with Ruger, I’m not too worried.

Go hug your teenager. Go! Now!

How to Drive the Family Therapist Nuts

Let's just start off with the premise that our family is a little bit 'different.'  We're funny, we're nice, we love each other, but we're quirky. Especially the kids. When you add in a family therapist that works with us, it's often a recipe for disaster. And hilarity. Or both.

We have a family therapist that comes to our home twice weekly. One visit is just for me, the other one for the family. She's a really nice woman and we like her a lot. But she's young and easily manipulated by my son, who works very hard at learning people's weaknesses and then exploiting them. He caught onto hers right away. She's sweet and shy and quite and very polite. All qualities that are lovely in people, but this kid can figure out how to get her to do what he wants without really trying. Annoying her is what he wants to do. He's masterful at it.

Take today. My boy has the annoying habit of interrupting everyone. Everyone. He's very gifted and his mind goes a lot faster than most, so he's constantly blurting out things that often aren't even relevant to the conversation. OK, he's annoying. I admit it. The interrupting drives me nuts, too.

Our therapist came armed with yet another way to get him to stop interrupting. She brought this cool light-up ball-like thing, and the idea was that you only got to speak if you were holding the ball. You had to pass it when you were done talking. Seems like a great idea, right? OH, I know it was based on those mens group where they passed the talking stick, but my kids don't know that.

So we start out with the ball. I start talking about my gripe of the day/week/year/decade: the dishes. Don't even get me started on why the dishes are the biggest trigger in our family. They just are. Take it from me.  I'm droning on about how the rules have once again been ignored and how the fighting between the two siblings over who used what dish is driving me nuts.

The boy asked for the ball to be passed. Once he got the ball he started telling a story about some stupid thing that happened in school. So I took the ball back. I was saying "I can't understand WHY the dishes can't be done before 11 pm and I don't get why he (my son) uses a different glass every time he gets something to drink.

He asks for the ball again and says, "Because" and passes the ball back. The therapist is getting ticked. He refuses to use the ball the way that she planned. He does everything in his power to "seem" like he's cooperating, but actually he's not.

The poor therapist also brings candy. She wants to do an incentive program where if nobody interrupts, they get candy dropped into the jar she's also brought. Of course my daughter immediately complains because it's chocolate and she doesn't LIKE chocolate (I know, and she's really related to me!) so she starts sulking and gets up and leaves.

At this point I'm feeling like I could strangle both kids and I start apologizing...again. It seems that all I do is apologize for their refusal to cooperate.  But somewhere, way deep down inside, they totally crack me up. It is so funny the way they manipulate people. Horrible, rude, and annoying...but funny.

Obviously I am a bad bad mommy. But I find them funny. Sue me!

High School Drama

Some kids attract teenage drama like my house attracts dust. Other kids can go through 4 years of high school virtually drama free. Of course those kids are geeky band kids who are in both the math and science clubs and don't even know that there is high school drama, but nevertheless, they seem to move through the halls of high school unscathed by all the angst other kids suffer daily.

My daughter is a drama magnet. It's unbelievable, but unfortunately true. One reason why is that the kid has a heart of gold. She's the most empathetic kid I've even known, she's a great listener, she likes to work on any personal problems other than her own, and she hands out advice like Dear Abby. Plus, she's got a non-verbal learning disability that makes her social skills a tad bit wonky, so she hears things differently than they're said, and she is as gullible as can be. She believes anything that any kid tells her. Anything.

As a drama magnet, she tends to befriend the kids that are hurting buckaroos. The kids with bad parents, the kids that are in foster homes, the kids that have alcohol or drug problems, the kids that are self-destructive, and the kids that are plain psychos. This kid has a series of wacky friends at all times, although the sets tend to change as the kids appear and disappear from town.

My daughter had MCAS testing this week. It's our NCLB 'waste a week on testing' standardized test, and this is the year she needs to pass it in order to graduate from high school. On the first day of the 3-day English test (math to come in May!), the second she put her pencil down, she was asked to go with her housemaster to his office. When they arrived, there was the town police youth officer there sitting with a huge pile of Facebook and IM messages to one of the craziest kids ever involved with my daughter. This Dramagirl evidentially called the police and said she was being harassed by a large group of kids, my daughter included. The police went through the pile of messages and quickly realized that my daughter was not harassing this girl, and once they talked to my daughter, they let her go.

She comes home from school livid. I don't blame her, I was livid as well.

All afternoon and evening the phone was ringing off the hook. She was IMing and Facebooking at top speed while on the phone. The gossip was rampant. Now THIS was high school drama at it's best. False accusations, the police, the school psychologist, house masters, bunches of kids being called into the housemaster's office to face the accusations and the rumors regarding the drama all spread like wildfire. Meanwhile the complainant? Well she left school and went home because she was "afraid." My comment? She was afraid of the truth coming out and even more kids thinking she's a nutcase.

So what does she post on my kid's wall on Facebook this evening?

"I don't know what I did. Why is everyone mad at me?"

I'm telling you, I was about ready to go over to this kid's house and strangle her. Except that her father is crazier than she is, and he's really scary. So I did the next best thing. I deleted her from my daughter's Facebook and blocked her. And I told my daughter that I'd be checking her account nightly and if she added this mean girl back, she's be off the computer for two weeks.

What I really want to do? Take this Dramagirl and get her some help. She's such a sad sack with no self-esteem, a crazy home life, a bundle of learning disabilities, and terrible support at home. It is so sad.

The very next day, after the MCAS tests, a bunch of kids were hanging out on 'the lot', the senior parking lot where all the reprobates hang out to smoke and cut classes. My daughter left the school grounds and went over to the lot to say hi to her friends, and one of the kids used incredibly bad judgement and used her cell to text the Dramagirl, telling her to come out to the lot "because some boy wanted to meet her". Next thing you know, every kid was texting every other kid and a crowd formed in the lot. A big crowd. A crowd of not so nice kids looking for trouble.

Dramagirl came out and the crowd surrounded her. They didn't threaten her with violence nor did the touch her, but they all screamed at her and it wasn't nice behavior. She was petrified and collapsed on her knees and called her father to come and get her. Meanwhile, there was a policeman in his car sitting at the end of the lot watching the entire thing and did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nor did the school. This poor kid was vilified and made a total pariah right on school property. She escaped the mob by running out of the lot where her dad picked her up.

A bit later my phone rang. It was her dad. He was beside himself and I don't blame him one bit. This girl didn't deserve to be treated like this, no matter how badly behaved she is. And she IS badly behaved. Nobody denies this. She talked smack over and over and over again about a bunch of kids and didn't understand that there would be consequences. But was this the right consequence? I don't think so and I'm quite upset that my daughter was a focal point.

Yes, it's nice that her friends came to her rescue. And protected each other. But it was one pretty damaged girl and they didn't have to treat her like this.

Her father pulled her out of school. Again, I think he did the right thing. When I talked to him, I told him that his kid needs a lot of help, help he isn't able to give her. She doesn't get social relationships, she has no idea of consequences and she has no culpability whatsoever.

I also made my daughter call and talk to him. I wanted her to listen to his version and I wanted him to listen to hers.  They had a long talk and reached some sort of detante.

But I'm just beside myself. I'm angry at my daughter for her part in this, I'm angry at Dramagirl for starting this whole nonsense in the first place and I'm furious with the school for allowing this kind of behavior on their property. So much for the "zero-tolerance" policy against bullying.

Boys Gone Wild

Normally, I'm not one to question gender differences. But it's time for Spring Break, and that's when Girls Go Wild. Why girls get the bad reputation is beyond me, but you don't see that much about boys on beaches baring their all, do you?

Since my kids are still in high school, Spring Break is only a state of mind. Once the sun starts setting later, the teens in my life start going a tad bit insane. Like they're going through some huge spurt of hormonal insanity or something. Not that the teen years aren't always filled with hormonal spurts of insanity. It's just that as spring comes, it all seems more intense. It's Boys Gone Wild around here.

Don't believe me?

Um, yeah.

This is my son's best friend.  This is my house. This is my son's friend hanging from the archway in my house. Fortunately, I was upstairs or out or something because had I actually witnessed this, they would have had to scrape my poor dead body off the floor.

Meanwhile, my son and a legion of his friends played Guitar Hero 3 for over 24 hours straight. You would think that it might get a bit boring. But it does not.

Even when some of the kids don't have guitar controllers and have to sit around and watch.

This, my friends, is a typical weekend at my house. Except mostly they don't hang from the archways. At least I don't think they do!

Doncha think his mother must be so proud of him?