Snarly teens, mad moms

There was a great article in NPR this week on raising teens, and when not to engage. "Experiencing Teen Overload? Blame Biology" made me realize, it's not just me when my daughter suddenly freaks out, slams doors and does everything but have her head start spinning around.

Read and enjoy.

If you really knew me.....

I just watched this MTV production with Jennifer last night, and I highly recommend it. For the uninitiated, it follows teens and their clicks in given high schools (and besides the name and the dress, not much as changed in 30 years, you still have the jocks, the cheerleaders, the outcasts (geeks) etc.)

Since this high school was in West Virginia, you had "creekers" who lived near a creek. The cool kids wore camouflage. Really. The homecoming queen liked to hunt.

But after a group came in to break down walls with about 50 to 100 key kids in the school, I found it amazing that that one of the kids hadn't gone in and shot up the school. Their stories were really painful. However, after they shared in a mixed group of clicks, the cheerleader saw that the emo outcast wasn't that much different than her.

Mom can I have the car?

And so it starts. Jennifer wants the car to meet her friends today down at an South King County theater and then they are going to go to dinner after. Which puts her home around 10 pm.

When I told hubby of this plan, he promptly declared it a waste of time and gas, and we could just as well go and drop her off and pick her up. I told him that it doesn't take that much gas to go where she's going. We've allowed her to do this before AND I don't think gas is the first thing on his mind.

Try the fact he's having problems with the daughter going out, at night, at all with the car.

I might just suggest she go to a matinee and try again later for a soiree with her pals at night.

Car shopping

We gobbled down our dinner at The Ram tonight and rushed down to the Honda used car lot before it closed.

Once the salesman found out our price range $4000 to $7000, he handed us off to his manager, which I think means we weren't worth his while. And so it continues. J has been prowling the internet for cars, as has Gary.

Jennifer's been finding cars she likes; and Gary has been nixing 'em, one right after another. Saab-too high maintenance. Prelude-it's a coup and will cost more to insure. Saturn-the one she found was too high mileage. Jennifer is getting annoyed, even if the points are valid.

So I finally pulled Gary aside and advised, to keep the peace in the house, at LEAST look at his daughter's finds. That way she'll at least feel like she has a say (which she does to a point, we're just not picking a car by how "cool" looking it is or its color).

Not with my daughter you don't

Jennifer was curled up next to me in tears, telling me about her boyfriend's friends (now x-friends) who were texting her nasty things, saying she was dominating all his time (not true) and it was her fault that he was now living in a group home for foster kids (um, not true again).

When she told me that one of them called her the c-word, that was the last straw. I brought in the big guns, i.e. gary. Said hubby promptly texted back all the perpetrators (who live in the same foster home Adam lived in) and blocked their # to text Jennifer. And he said if they tried it again, through another phone #, he'd call the cops.

I dont' think it dawns on these kids, that mess with Jennifer, you mess with 2 angry bears. That hasn't been their experience in their lives,but I think they know it's part of Jennifer's reality. Mess with her, you mess with all of us.

And adam has crossed said "friends" off the bff list.

Twilight mania

Jennifer isn't much of a fan of Twilight, the movies, but her friends are.

So that explains alot on why she's staying up until midnight tonight and going down to Kent Station, near our home, to watch the new part of the series - Eclipse - when it starts showing at 12:01 tomorrow.

At first I had planned to take her to a showing up at the Pacific Science Center tonight, but no dice, that was for adults only, with cocktails.

Then Kent offered a 3-movie package, with treats, and she was intrigued. Began calling her friends, but couldn't find a ride home. And her dad said "no way" to his daughter driving home at 3 am, alone, after the movie, even tho it was only a 2 minute hop to our home.

So what to do. Gary said no, but I figured out if Jennifer met her friends there, and then went home with them on an overnighter, it might just work. And it did. So one lucky mom (not me) gets to welcome home four tired teens at 4 am tomorrow and let 'em sleep it off and talk about whether they are Team Edward or Team Jacob.

I'm either going to have to start taking French again...

or hire Jennifer a tutor.

I was grilling her for her French final last night, and her vocab final. On the vocab, I was doing fine, and she, not so much, so it will be interesting to see how that test goes today. And the French final, I was asking her how her day was, where Martinique was, if she liked her Chemistry class, all in French mind you, but as she spit back the answers, I realized she was lapping me in my knowledge.

So back to class for me.

Attack of the killer crabs

And no, I don't mean those type of crabs. I mean the type of that pinch.

This weekend, Jennifer decided to join me down on the Des Moines Beach for my first Beach Naturalist shift of the year. It was also the lowest tide of the year. And while there was the usual crowd of moon snails about, we we're seeing much else unusual until I saw what I thought was a detached red rock crab shell buried in the mud.

So we squatted down by the shell and carefully tried to extract it from the sand. The crab attached to the shell was not amused. It exploded out of the sand, pinchers drawn and Jennifer and I both almost fell backwards with the yelp.

As an aside, red rock crabs have powerful pinchers and are very aggressive in you get in their face. This guy def. felt we were in his face. And so did his buddies.

IN the red rock crab world, the boys like to hang the the boys and the gals with the gals, until mating season of course. And so when we disturbed this guy, all his buddies erupted out of the sand too. It was a bit like a 1950s horror movie. And Jennifer, who was wearing only flip flops, did little yelps as she tried to dodge miffed crabs who were making a run for the water.

So we provided entertainment for both my fellow naturalists and the crowd that gathered to see what all the shouting was about.

#twittermoms, #wildlife

American Pickers and Pawn Stars

Yes, I know, we watch too much TV, but these have become our new fav's - American Pickers and Pawn Stars - along with Cold Case.

We need something to get us through the doldrums until the summer season picks up. Yes, Burn Notice and Royal Pains are on USA, but that's only one day a week. We're in a bit of a drought for the other six.

#television #twittermoms

To much into tech

I read this NYT article with some dismay - basically the bottom line is that our kids want us off the computer, phone or bluetooth and focusing on them when they are around.

I recently just skipped trying to post on this blog, for example or updating my Facebook or Twitter account, because frankly, I could feel my family frowning at my back when I did.

Now never mind that my hubby watches TV and is glued to his blackberry, or that my daughter is doing the same thing, except texting. But if I do it, it's another matter. Here is another disturbing NYT article about being too plugged in.

#twittermoms #technology