"Fuck off! Don't go!"

As every parent will recognise, this is a very expressive term of endearment from son to mother. I took it as such immediately and it made me smile. Made my day actually.

My revenge/appreciation/sign of love is to use it as a blog post title.

Non-parents, I can hear you rolling your eyes from here. I promise, you'll be laughing one day when you get the pleasure of hearing similar words. Big smile.

The sweetest sight

...is seeing people lying and chatting on the bouncy castle in the garden. My parents will be along later to see this too.

Time to up my game

This evening T was the one calling me on my bad manners, slurping as I ate a very tasty chocolate. He said sorry, but I said it was ok, as it was the start of a new phase, when I need to be more lady-like again, after the permissive years of having younger teenagers. All of a sudden behaving well matters to T. As he's my older child he is taking me along with him, requiring this of of me.

Fresh starts

One of my best parenting tools has been a fresh start. In fact lots of them, every half an hour possibly, until the concept of what happened earlier affects now is graciously forgotten. I am now able to go from active row to happy food making and delivery on a sixpence.

Sometimes I do get stuck in an angry rut. That is really annoying and pointless. Going out for a drive or walk is good. A long hot bath or generally having my own time out is great to break my bad cycle.

Very little actually matters that much.

Famous Last Words

...but my 2 boys like being in the same house as each other. Home is not a dirty word. We mill around and eat stuff. We all get loads of free time on our own to read/play/watch what we want. We go into the rooms where the others are every so often and chat, but apart from that we are a social free zone.

Seriously, when was there last a humdinger of an argument, with slammed doors and all that???

We do have very late nights and very late mornings, which helps!

Coughing

I can't be sure whether H has a bad cold with wooziness or a version of flu which allows him to have relatively normal moments before he goes back to the sofa. I explained that with flu you just can't get up, but I think he felt I was downgrading his suffering by calling it a cold.

Anyway, I have prescribed more sofa and less chatting, then he won't be hit with exhaustion and bad coughing in the same way.

He and T had been having a go at me in a teenage sort of way, but then only moments later H needed me to be saintly nursing Mother who completely forgets the previous discussions and just brings towels and medicine and the remote!

'Right over there'

We all went bowling this evening. T and H decided soon after arriving that they would rather not change into the bowling shoes. They took my car keys and set off across the huge car park to find it and then sit in it. It took 2 journeys for them to find my car. I like to get some fresh air so always park a long way from my destination. It was quite hard to explain exactly how far away it was and how it was near a hedge 'right over there on the left'.

They had enough of that after a while and returned to watch us play.

The good bits were getting some good shots, seeing S getting some strikes and lending my camera to the other HE children in another lane to play with and get some action photos. I got a tiny bit of chatting to 3 other HE mothers too.

When we got back I promised to never take them bowling again. They used to enjoy it and I was the one who would to refuse to go.....

Tricked, or something

I went into Blockbuster with one of my sons. There was no fuss at all, but when I got back home I realised I had come out with one 18 amongst the 5 dvds.

Last time S was the one who magically came home with something with the wrong rating after going to get a dvd with that same quiet but determined son.

Hmmm...for the nth time.

From now on we adults will go there unaccompanied!

Evening moments

"I hate you!.... Thank you' as I fish crumpled, but salvageable English notes out of the fireplace, wiping the dust off on my dressing gown.

Now to find a phone which has gone walkabout.

S came into the darkened kitchen, 'Why are all the lights off?' Well, I thought that having them off might equal night time and therefore sleeping time to T. 'Does it work?' Of course not, but it's a harmless occupation and keeps me sane.

That's why there are no lights on for the stairs and I keep on switching everything off as I wander around the house putting away laundry. I do try not to fall down stairs, so I hold onto the bannisters carefully.

With any luck T might have found his own phone before I get round to actually putting any effort into looking for it properly...No point in being too effective at finding children's stuff for them.

No longer so together

The strange peace of the past week has gone. I didn't even do my daily tick sheet at all today.

T was arguing with me for a fair amount of the day. He stopped when I took H to the dentist, but resumed when I got back. I retaliated with comments like 'well in the 70's if a child broke something they tended to hide the fact, not ask for replacements and the parent would say "oh bad luck" at best'....mind you the child would simply not have the item in the first place....

Taking H to the dentist is one of those tense events which means that nothing else really matters for that whole day. I feel tense beforehand and then relieved afterwards. So must he.

T did a splendid angry jump onto a cardboard box in the middle of the drive. I just happened to glance out as he flew through the air to connect with it.

He also broke the temperature gauge outside. I rescued the metal coil. And he turned over a young treelet in its pot. Humph. I held out the bin for the bits of gauge and made him wait while I trowelled the earth back onto the tree roots.

Anyway after all that I drove him to take some photos, got to the place, then he realised the tripod was back home. Drove back, got it and drove back to the place. T then lost the will to take photos. By that time we were having quite a laugh at the pointlessness of our early evening trips and got back home in a good mood.

So all in all it was a busy day full of incident!

Purpose

A friend asked me today what my purpose in life is. At the moment I feel content without a big goal, but at other times I have had and needed a clear purpose, several even!

There are all sorts of sadnesses going on at present around me. Dealing with myself as all these big emotions swirl round me is quite enough. I water my plants and put out bird seed. I call relatives and send Facebook messages. I read blog posts and my library books.

The boys are growing up and eating their favourite foods. So I go to the supermarket and I cook what they like when they are hungry. Simple really.

I have a bit of a rant when I get cross and my housemates all listen. The cat sits on my knee and then kills our wild shrews.

I forget to look at my checklist for each day, then I remember to half way through the evening. That's ok.

Dramas and amnesia

Every day there is some sort of drama. But, the next day, I can barely remember what it was about, or indeed whether there was a drama. Sometimes I ask, 'what was I so het up about yesterday?'.

I may have mentioned this parent-of-a-teenager-amnesia before, I'm not sure, but it's worth mentioning again since it is such a helpful state to be in!

Am I the only one?

Elephant traps

That is the name I give to a simple conversation about something like the importance of Parliament or how Microsoft got its spots which imperceptibly goes wrong. T starts it, but I create the trap all by myself.

First I'm happily sharing my views which have taken decades to form, then I realise I am repeating myself and sounding rather middle-aged, and then I realise I am right inside an elephant trap!

What has happened is that T has been sharing his views and repeating them because they are strongly felt and new, and also because I don't seem to be quite getting his points.

So I giggle and start saying "yes, you are right, just so right, and I've just fallen into a parent of a teenager trap again". The mum is meant to say yes in an agreeable sort of way, happily nod when told that her views are simply wrong, and stay calm and jolly. This is not, not, not a conversation about the topic, it is an opportunity to listen and appreciate your young, smile and enjoy being totally in the wrong. It's cosy and warm in the wrong, get used to it!

It's more about being able to chat and be heard, have an opportunity to have a gentle rant (the way I have done many times and the children have heard me out patiently, ending with a gentle 'but so and so is an idiot' showing they totally agree with me about the iniquity of the universe).

Sometimes I stop and say "why are we arguing?".

This happens most days and I like it!

Concert

I got out to a concert this evening. I sat there listening and watching my thoughts drift to other topics.

After all those years of trying to shush a child on my knee or making it through just the first few minutes of an event before going outside, it feels very odd, empty even, to be the undisturbed adult able to sit there and act conventionally again.

Someone took their little boy out before the concert had even begun and I realised how disconnected from parenting I feel when I don't have one of my children with me. I even felt jealous of that situation.

However the reality is that I am in the middle of 2 ongoing arguments/discussions about issues I feel uncomfortable with. Neither content to say 100% yes to, nor content to say 100% no to. This middle ground is where the difficulties lie I find.

Do parents get amnesia about the teenage years? Do they look back fondly and wish to be tied up again in verbal knots about their clearly not well enough thought out positions?

90 minutes later

T got to the station 90 minutes later than usual. Was I worried? Was I bored? Was I cross? No.

I finally realised my mobile was out of power, so I decided to drive home and phone him from there. He sounded so happy and I could hear his friends in the background.

While I was waiting I realised that 'my' corner of the station car park is ripe for some guerilla gardening. I have loads of spare seeds from years past, so they will go to seed heaven on a wet day.

Silence

This blog has been very quiet, but that is all an illusion!

Lots goes on in our household, all sorts of powerful emotions and discussions. Rows, demands, drawing of limits, redrawing of limits, fun expeditions, conversations, home truths, waiting for people to brush their teeth, discussions about brushing of the teeth last thing at night....oh it goes on and on.

Playing with my phone

While H does his teenage thing I amuse myself by looking downwards with my phone. Anyone familiar with Ansel Adams will recognise the front of a wonderful book of his photos of America. It's in the Didcot Library at the moment.

I think there is a tripod on the right hand side. The tiled floor means it is in our kitchen. The pot came from Sainsbury's a long time ago and held a delicious chocolate pudding. The pots were so good I kept them, then built up a sufficient supply of them, then stopped buying the puddings as I didn't need any more pots.

Out

Out and about, to Costa Cafe to sit on a lovely squashy leather sofa and play with marshmallow and flake.

Then wandering through the deep caverns of aisles to find chocolate and garlic bread...

Later off in the dark to take photos of the stunning deep blue sky and headlights whizzing past.

So much doesn't get put on here, but I guess anyone with teenaged children knows why. So fill in the blanks with whatever is going on in your household and can't make it to blogland.

I had a good old rant about school last night, it boiled down to 'a good workman doesn't blame his tools', ie any blaming of children is misplaced. A responsible adult does exactly that and takes responsibility rather than passing it onto someone a fraction of their age.

I'm nearly 46, is this the reason for my crossness?

Sleeping

..like a teenager. At peace, still, on and on. While the body and mind sleep the transformations happen to both. No one goes around pestering caterpillars once they are all wrapped up in their cocoons, so 'Leave those sleeping teenagers alone!!' is my motto.

When they are awake they have intermittent teenageritis which requires food, drinks and general care. When it is over they head off to do fun things until the next burst of teenageritis hits.

Middle aged people have odd ailments too: extreme grumpiness, odd attacks of nature worship, peculiar longings for order and a love of old TV comedies.

Sleeping

The cat is sleeping on my lap and my son H is sleeping to my right.

I read a brilliant email today about how to read out loud as a way to wake a sleeping teenager gently (and bond with them, and feel positive about them, and feel positive about mothering, and increase their vocabulary, and enjoy some good books, and feel at peace with the universe ...). So maybe later or maybe tomorrow I will make a tiny bookshelf so I can try this out.