Advice from the battlefield. With a seriously funny edge.
“Teenagers are like those cool tropical fish you get after you’ve mastered goldfish.
Who am I kidding? No one can master the keeping of goldfish. Or pre-teens. Or teenagers. You graduate only to bigger kids, but with bigger issues and bigger appetites. God help us all. Especially me?…
Keep your head up – here are tips I offer from years of battleground experience.”
I’m having a wee bit of trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that Bear turns eleven today.
If you’ll bear with me for one moment, I’ve gotta do a bit of shameless mama bragging on these kids o’ mine.
These babes are the bomb diggity. They’re smart, funny, talented, and beautiful by any measure. When they’re unhappy it’s palpable. When they’re happy, joy radiates from them like warmth from the sun.
If you visited the blog yesterday you know this has been an intense week. Frankly, I’ve downed a lot of Advil and done more than my fair share of stress eating, neither of which really fixed what ailed me. Beer didn’t help either. That’s what I get for trying to self-medicate.
Bee recently talked about what it’s like to live in redneckia and it made me laugh. Then it made me cringe. Then laugh again. Because sometimes the world is so freaking distressing, so overwhelmingly frustrating and infuriating, that my only coping mechanism is to find humor in the macabre. Which is certainly how I categorize the racist sh*t we’ve run into over the last three years or so.
Are you concerned about flunking parenting? That you’re scraping by with a C- simply by clothing and feeding your offspring? Do you have the nagging feeling that you, and only you, are missing the genetic code explaining Garanimals, Lunchables, and Pokémon cards?
Fear not, brave reader. You Are Not Alone.
Ah, the beauty of middle school.
Social drama and texting. Girls and P.E. class. Low man on the totem pole, switching classes, and brand new lunch options.
Plus graduation from a fifth grade puberty discussion to the health class that spans a range of topics including – wait for it – sex education.
Let the good times roll.
For people who whine about having their privacy invaded, teens know remarkably little about their privacy rights on social media. Though, to be fair, the same could be said for many adults since those terms of use agreements read like Sanskrit.
One lawyer decided to break down Instagram into plain English for us.
“Afterward, the teenagers said they understood very little about privacy rights on Instagram, despite getting through the terms and conditions.
‘I don’t know due to the sheer amount of writing and lack of clarity within the document,’ a 15-year-old said, according to the report.
The group ran Instagram’s terms and conditions through a readability study and found that it registered at a postgraduate reading level, Afia said.”
Valentines Musings for My Munchkins
We've survived many a ♥ day,
you and I...
There were years
I was certain
we'd never survive.
Addressing endless valentines,
fumbled shoebox crafts,
scouring ingredients for peanut allergies
lest we send a classmate
into anaphylactic shock.
"Bee Mine", "You Rock",
"you're the purr-fect friend!"
Huddled around the kitchen table,
enduring the angst of picking
which card goes to whom.
Then there's always the mom
whose kid does those damn
Pinterest valentines
when we all know
you only want
the sugar
anyway.
Elementary socialism
demands a valentine
for each boy, each girl -
no exceptions.
For years we've
faithfully followed
the rule,
candy for everyone,
no child left behind,
until the straw that broke
the camel's back.
Now one's on strike,
refusing to take Valentines
at all
if it means putting on
a false face.
Middle school's shark tank
throws our kids in
to sink or swim
as they tread the
social waters
of tween hierarchy.
Suddenly a normal Tuesday
is rife with angst -
girls and guys
tiptoeing around each other,
painfully anxious,
parents helpless
through it all.
I do not envy you today,
my loves.
