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.