16 Ways to Know you Have a Teenage Boy

In honor of my son, Mr. T, who turned 16 on Monday, I thought I would bring you

1. Your water bill has gone up.  This is due to extended showers.  I fully believe that this is due to a sudden interest in cleanliness.  This is the story.  This is the truth.  I refuse to believe anything else.
2. The fact that there must be a force-field around all of your laundry hampers is a genuine concern.
3. You understand what Snapchat is, how it works and yes, you are worried.
4. Food disappears.  Like overnight.  Like if you wash a bunch of grapes and lovingly pluck them from the stems and put them in a bowl in the fridge, make sure you eat all you want right then.  They won’t be there in the morning.
5. Serving sizes become meaningless. The note that says “Serves Four” becomes “Serves a mom, a teenage son and 3 tablespoons will be left over.  Too little to save for tomorrows lunch but too much apparently for the human garbage disposal to eat.”
6. You’ve heard the perks of living at home, and they don’t include love, they include Food, Shelter and Wi-fi.
7. You start to wonder if eyes really can roll back into a head, and if so – is it worth a trip to the emergency room? Didn’t you warn them when they were younger that “If you keep making that face it will stick that way?”
8. You’ve had a conversation and then had to sneak onto the internet to translate what was actually said.
9. You know what Kk, Bae, Molly and Poppin’ Tags all stand for.
10. You’ve had a complete conversation where all of the answers you received were in the form of sighs and grunts.
11. There have been days when you communicate via Twitter and Text more than you talk in person.
12. “Can I drive?” Is the most common phrase in your house.  You even start hearing it in your sleep.
13. You have to troll Twitter to find out what is going on in your kids life. #StalkerMom
14. Mysterious phone calls start coming in.  Sometimes these phone calls require hanging out in the back yard.
15. Clouds of aftershave/deodorant/cologne is becoming a permanent feature in the bathroom.
16. You have heard the “Mom, I need my space” talk.

If any of the above has happened to you, you might be raising a teenage boy!

And you know what?

I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Text Message From my Dead Brother

I know, I know, it sounds morbid.  Just stick with me for a minute.

One thing you should know about me is that I tend to save some text messages.  Some are funny, some are touching, some are for reference and some are just sentimental.  Just like at home where I tend to toss or donate a lot, I try not to be an electronic hoarder (hello, that’s why I have Pinterest!), so I will go through every couple of days and clean out my messages.

Last night Mr. T was sitting next to me doing his homework and since I didn’t want the TV on distracting him, I’d been playing on my phone, which can easily keep me busy for an hour or more! I checked Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Word Press.  All caught up on my social media I moved on to my text messages and began going through and deleting recent messages that I didn’t feel the need to keep.  I was making great progress and then I hit the bottom of my page.

A text message from Lee.

Let me tell you about this text message.  We had let go of Lee earlier in the day and we were all there as he transitioned peacefully to Heaven.  After we got home from the hospital there was so much to deal with – as a reminder, the back bedrooms had flooded a few days before and I was making arrangements for the floor to be checked and the massive fans and dehumidifiers to be picked up, and then the task of moving all of the furniture and items back into the bedrooms and closets.  I was also contacting mom and dad’s cleaning lady and their yard guy to come by and help get things in order in anticipation of guests coming by to offer condolences and then the family arriving before and after the service.

By the time I got home that evening I was mentally and physically exhausted and I had no sooner crawled into bed when my phone went off signaling a text message.  I picked up my phone and it was a blank message from my recently deceased brother!!

Look – see that empty bubble?  What would you think if you got a BLANK MESSAGE?!?  Naturally, after I ruled out electrical phenomenon associated with spirits trying to communicate with me, I figured my parents had his phone.

Like I would be able to sleep after getting this!

You can see what I replied! Shortly after my reply back to them, here is what came through:

Okay, that’s better!

You can see that there were texting me a picture to email my sister who was putting together the tribute video for the service, and pictures take longer to transmit, so it came through after the blank message did.  It wasn’t my brothers spirit trying to connect with me, and well, I’m not sure if I’m relieved or disappointed!

The next day I was telling dad about my reaction and he goes “I told your mom it would freak you out.”  I had to whip out my phone and show him how it came across and the blank message that was the first to hit.  Again, how am I supposed to NOT freak out over that? We all got a good laugh out of it!  I told them I sat there and stared at my phone for several seconds while my brain tried to process it all before reality set in and I realized what was happening… And then getting the rest of the message made more sense!

So, needless to say, I still have the text message from my dead brother and I think I’ll hoard that one just a little bit longer!

Tomorrow is the Heart Walk and our family will walk united in memory of Lee.  And while I’d love a sign from him, I’m just as happy if it doesn’t come in the form of a text message!

Kate’s Heart Walk Donation Page

Dinner Time

The other day I had a work meeting outside the house that ran from about 2:30 – 7:00 pm.

Towards the end of my meeting, I got this tweet:

So, I got home.  I did notice that the dish washer was going, and that surprised me, but my thought was that he had cleaned his room and was doing dishes.

Oh no… I asked him why his feet hurt and what was going on? He goes “look in the fridge”  I was like “Oh, did you clean it out?”

No, he hadn’t cleaned out the fridge, he filled it up!

While I was gone my kid cooked enough food to last us a week:

1. beans
2. 2 servings of ramen noodles
3. Hamburger Helper
4. jello
5. egg-less cookie dough to eat not bake (more like a brownie mix)
6. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

Now, before you judge, you need to know that most of what he cooked are items that I keep on hand for emergencies, it’s not part of our everyday rotation – and I’m not sure how old the box of jello was; however, I will eat everything! My son spent time cooking for me, so I will eat it!  In fact, today, I had ramen noodles for my lunch – it’s been years since I’ve had any, and yeah, they haven’t changed at all! For dinner, I will have some hamburger helper.  And I will enjoy it all because I didn’t have to cook AND he didn’t leave me all those dirty dishes to do!

 

Yup, that happened – my son got bored and cooked for a week!