What I Know Now

Teenagers are exhausting, exhilarating, frustrating and lots of other things ending in "ing".  I'm also reminded almost daily that they are also fascinating.  Tonight I went for a long walk with my 16 year old.  This past week has been a real challenge for me.  It seems that no matter what I ask him to do it becomes a debate.  KD is normally the most loving and accommodating kid a mother could ever ask for.  We usually make fun of the teenagers that are all moody and emo.  I even bought him a t-shirt for Christmas with "Shakespeare hates your emo poems" on it which he loves.  But every once in a while he goes angsty on me.  This was one of those weeks.  So we went for a walk and I told him that I missed his ready smile, sunny attitude and weird sense of humor.  Really, I told him, I just like the old KD better.  What I love about our relationship is that he will actually have an intelligent conversation with me about stuff.  He's exhausted and not feeling 100%.  With getting up early to bike to our church where he has been volunteering for the summer kids camp, not eating properly and getting to bed really late he admitted to being a bear around the house.  I asked him to tell me what he needed from me to make things better.  He said that instead of describing the things he was doing that were bugging me I should just tell him to stop doing them.  "Give me an order and I'll just do it".  So here I am spending all this time trying to describe his behavior and how it's making life crazy and all he really wants me to do is call him on it and tell him to stop.  Male children! So surprisingly uncomplicated.  What I know now is that boys are the best.  You always know where you stand and when it's done it's done.

Rain Man

So my 10 year old SM is a smart little nut.  I admit that I'm a bit biased because I birthed him but it's true.  I call him my little Rain Man because he is such a fact guy.  His brotther who is 16 and I don't even bother to argue with him when he starts spouting facts, we just assume he's right and save ourselves the trouble of looking it up on-line.  At the end of June we were in Toronto visiting my family and took a trip to the Ontario Science Centre.  What a great place for kids and adults alike.  They have an interactive animal exhibit where they lay out items such as wale skin, wolf fur, walrus tusks and bat skeletons, and other really cool stuff and the staff member gets kids to guess what things are and then tells them all sorts of interesting facts.  In his case that poor girl didn't get a chance to do much talking.  SM not only guessed what each item was he then proceeded to tell her some interesting facts about each animal.  It was so funny, as we walked away I looked back and she was pointing at him and telling the other staffers about him. 

Do you ever wonder if your kids are smarter than you?

Money, Money, Money.

How would you describe your relationship with money?



This is a critical question....your relationship with money. Men and women have totally different relationships with money.


Traditionally (and I will make this disclaimer at the beginning here that I am making generalizations and there are certainly exceptions) men are taught that money is a means to an end. They measure their level of success and self worth by how much they make. Their relationship with money is one of power......it is a tool; it empowers them, motivates them to move ahead and measures their success as a provider....as a man. Most men do not have an emotional relationship with money. It is a means to an end.


Women on the other hand often have a very emotional relationship with money. And, I would venture to say, for most of us it is a very dysfunctional one!


For me money has played the role a best friend, therapist, a disapproving parent and a scary boogieman in the dark.


It can make me feel fantastic and ashamed, a source of incredible highs and terrible lows.


Why is that? How can an inanimate object affect me so much? Why are most women so afraid of their money and therefore are not in control of their finances. Ladies, why are we standing in the way of our own fabulous financial futures?