My son turned 17 this weekend. My daughter turned 15 in July. I look at them and wonder where the time went. I remember when Adri was a baby and Ant used to want to help me with her. He would pull her around on a blanket so he could have her there with him. These days they get along maybe twice a week, I am hoping that will change as they get older.
It seems like only yesterday I was their age and going through things that I see them facing. Back in the day life seemed to be so much easier than what it is today. My son is at the point in his life where all he wants to do is hang out with his friends and enjoy the last year of his high school years. I was that way too, but less intense. My idea of being a rebel was ditching school to decorate the band float and the kicker was that all the parents let us be absent that day, so we were not really rebels. A good party was drinking soda and maybe sneaking a wine cooler or a zima (haha Zima)! Nowadays If I pick Ant up from a party there is usually a cop watching all the teenagers leave in an orderly fashion. Back in the day a cop would have scared the crap out of us.
Then there is my daughter. She wears her heart on her sleeve and she is not hard to figure out. Back in the day I had teenage crushes but it was different. The longest I liked someone was two months tops and then there was someone else. She is different. If she likes someone, she does it devotedly (is that a word?). She does it with her whole heart. She has had a crush for a while but he doesn't want to crush on her back. While I can understand how my baby girl feels and how her heart seems to be breaking I have to admit I am glad her crush only likes her as a friend.
I remember my mom telling me that I would have my whole life to meet someone and fall in love and to be a kid. I remember liking boys and if they didn't like me I thought it was the end of the world. I look back on those days and smile. When you are a teenager you actually do think it's the end of the world if HE does not like you back, I was there once too. Tonight I had to have a talk with her and tell her the same thing my mama told me. I told her that she was beautiful and that there are plenty of people who think the same thing. I told her not to waste her time on someone who couldn't see how special she was. Of course that talk went in one ear and out the other when all she could do was tell me how she would forget about him in a year...oh young love!
It's crazy looking at these little people that I once had in my stomach. I sometimes miss them as sweet little babies who smelled of baby magic products and now smell like Victoria's Secret and Axe products. They are taller than me and I like the people they have become. I will admit that there are those days I would rather jump off a cliff than to deal with them and their attitudes but they are typically good kids. It's kind of like having these mini friends who live with you and help you deal with your spouse.
It is hard being a teenager and I give them credit for their efforts but I must also say that it is hard being a parent. You see them going through things and you know more or less what the outcome will be and when you try and help them in the right direction they accuse you of trying to control them. It's hard to imagine that at this time next year my son will be an adult, a real live legal adult 18 year old. It's scary.
I guess in the end all I can do is pray. I will pray that one day they will go to church without me asking them to. I pray that they will take the right paths in life and I just pray for them.
They make me smile, make me cry, make me happy and sometimes break my heart. I would do anything for them and they take up residence in most of my heart. Your babies will always be your babies, no matter what and I plan on being with mine every step of the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment