My Teenagers

There are things I want to tell my kids / help them with/ guide them in the right direction…

I need a way other than straight out telling them because I sound like a nag cuz I’ve said it before and they tune me out.

I wish I could find an inspirational website or book for them.  I am a total book lover and I’m sure some exist that could help but how to even find such a book.

My 13 year old is chasing a boy that is a jerk.  And he doesn’t like her which is painfully obvious.  If he ever replies to one of her texts she thinks that all is well and that he likes her.  And of course he tells her he does but then doesn’t reply to any of her texts for days on end. He lives on a farm and says he is too busy to text.   But other friends have told her he texts them.  And he shows her texts to others and laughs that she is chasing him.  I seriously do not like this kid.

She has liked him for a long time.  After Christmas she asked him what he got for Christmas.  He said “a hand job”.  Yep.  Isn’t he awesome?  Some of this I know from spot checking her phone – which she knows I do but sometimes she forgets to delete everything. ha.  Some of it she tells me.  Some of it another mom tells me cuz her daughter tells her everything.  Thanks to this kid, I have had to explain to my daughter what a hand job was.  Yep.  I did because she didn’t know and I certainly didn’t want her to google it!  Agh!

She says she knows he’s  mean, but he’s nice to her.  I told her I thought she deserved a guy that is nice to everyone, not just her.  (Cuz we all know that will wear off and he’ll be mean to her too! )  She said he’s everything she wants, except that he’s rude.  How can he be everything she wants and BE RUDE?   (Don’t get me started on how this is all my fault since I put up with her dad for too long and he was mean and rude and isnt that a great male role model for her!?)

And her new best friend is a total drama queen and so controlling.  Kid2 stands up to her which I’m glad about – but that means there is constant drama with these two.  I want her to go back to her old BFF she’s had since kindergarten.  Wow 7th grade was a hard year for these girls.  It shook up all of their relationships.  :(

So I need a book for her to read.  Some great teenage romance where the girl likes a jerk and ignores the nice guy, but then figures out she got it backwards.  Anyone know of a book with that story that is suitable for a 13 year old?  Is there a place that you can search for books by the plot?  That would be awesome.

And my 15 year old is a social outcast.  Sad.  She hasn’t done ONE thing with friends ALL summer!  She doesn’t even try.  It makes me sad for her.  She acts like it doesn’t bother her.  But then she has occasional meltdowns where it all comes out.  Times like this are when I wish we weren’t from such a small town.

The girls she used to hang out with in grade school are now the popular crowd.  Apparently she didn’t make the cut once high school began.  The other group is a group that I don’t want her to hang out with and she doesn’t want to either.  They are smoking and swearing and hanging out in town way too late at night.  She is in the middle.  She is friends with everyone she says.  And when school is in that works ok because she talks to everyone at school.  But she isn’t included in parties and anything outside of school.  She really is fun and sweet.  She is immature for her age.  I know that.  And she doesn’t do well at socializing.  What I mean is – she kind of just watches and listens and follows along when she is in a group of friends.  She doesn’t really contribute to the conversations or show her personality at all.  I think it’s easy to forget she is even there.  That is what I see happening.

I’ve talked to her a lot about talking too and contributing to the conversation.  We’ve talked about things she could say when she doesn’t know what to say…  I don’t know how to help her and it hurts my heart.

Is there a book that helps her figure this out?  A website?  I can tell her to text people and just ask how their summer is going – but she doesn’t do it.  I tell her to invite someone over to swim, she says she can’t think of anyone to invite…  sigh.

I am Grateful for my Husband

I am Grateful for my Husband.

And I am so happy to be able to type that sentence and mean it with all my heart.

A few examples of his recent awesomeness:

– Kid2 has been really challenging lately.  She needs to constantly be doing something with one of her friends or her whole world falls apart.  If she had her way, she would never be home.  Or at least not be here without a friend here too.  We live in the country, so her friends who live close to each other in town get together more often, she feels left out, the drama follows.  Hubby calls it her “needy friends phase”.  Dear God I hope it’s a phase that ends quickly.  It’s exhausting.  SO, instead of answering her, I started telling her to ask her dad.  I knew he wouldn’t say yes nearly as often as I was and I figured it was his turn to deal with it.  I needed a break from it!   LOL   That was probably the best thing for the situation.  He does say no a lot.  He says yes sometimes.  He gets to see how it has been for me dealing with this by myself for so long.   He used to say “Ask your mom.”  Now he is on the other end of that and it has been a wake up call for him.

It gave him a whole new perspective – Which I think led him to deal with Kid1 in a way he has never stepped up and done before….

– Kid1 is getting quite bold lately in telling me no.  She just gets mean and defiant and says NO.  And to her that is the end of it.  I have been trying to deal with this consistently and in different ways but she has been winning unfortunately.  And she knows it.  She told me NO yesterday.  Hubby came home shortly afterwards and asked why she wasn’t doing what I asked her to do.  I told him why.  HE MADE HER DO IT. She threw her fit, she cried and moaned.  She yelled that her life was horrible, she yelled all sorts of things but he didn’t back down.  She knew she wasn’t going to win and she finally gave in and went to get ready.  (What we wanted her to do btw is to help hubby’s sister prep food for the concession stand.  Sis-in-law needed help, Kid1 gets paid to do this, she’s helped before so she knows what she is doing, and it would take about 2 hours and she needs to get off the couch! so we wanted her to go.)

I was so proud of hubby.  He was demanding without being angry.  He (mostly) kept his cool which is pretty darn hard when your teenager is hurling insults at you.

– Kid2 was very sassy and rude to me when I picked her up from track Saturday morning.  Just horrible.  We got home and she came in the house with an attitude.  Hubby asked what was going on, I told him, he took her electronics and she still didn’t get them back.

– There are more examples that I’d love to tell you all about but it is already later than I want it to be!   You’ll have to stop over for a cup of coffee and we can gab :)

He has my back now.  I don’t feel like it’s all on me.  We are sharing this responsibility.  It is so awesome.

(And he has been taking the $$ issues seriously finally too and even talked to the kids about how we’ve been spending too much and blah blah blah when the kids had a fit when I packed sandwiches for the ballgames instead of buying supper at the concession stand.  Before Hubby always wanted to just buy it there and would do that even if I had packed food.  Of course it’s yummy, but it’s not cheap!)

I feel so…. cared for.

That’s all I ever wanted.

Dear God,  Please make this last.  Amen.

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Oh... and I got to have sex last night.  HA HA That could be 
another reason I'm feeling so grateful for this man. ;)

Update to the Freak Out Update

The plan for the open house last night was this….

Take an ativan at 3:30.  Leave house at 4:30, be there by 5:00 to beat the crowds.  Visit, go have dinner with the family somewhere.

What really happened though was:
When Kid1 got home from school yesterday she was sick.  Freezing cold and feeling dizzy.  She had refused to take any of the pain meds that the dentist gave her.  I gave her a motrin and hoped maybe it was just tooth ache side effects, although the flu is going around school right now too.  She slept about half an hour and came downstairs looking miserable but decided she could go. I really wanted to go – I’ve only ever been there once before.  I wanted to go see where my daughter will be spending her mornings next year!   I was going to tag along with BFF and her kid if Kid1 wasn’t feeling up to it.  She said she was though so I called BFF and told her to go without me.

Hubby changed his mind about going many times.  He went to this school – vo tech – when he was in high school and took the welding program.  But Kid1 is interested in the multimedia department, which is a whole new experience at this school.  He has been a bit disappointed ever since Kid1 expressed interest in going here – he’s always said he wants his kids to go to college and earn the “easy money”.  What this means to him is that you use your brain to make your money –  instead of physical work.  He has a very physically demanding, dirty, hard job.

But I think this is the perfect choice for her!  It is multimedia and web design.  It is really neat.  They have a lot of high tech equipment, they work with a lot of local businesses, she will get great real world training and work experience.  And lets face it, school has always been a  challenge for Kid1.  I think college would be miserable for her.  I will not tell her not to go to college.  I will never tell her that.  It’s her choice.  But that’s another reason this is perfect.  When she graduates, she will be certified in something – not sure what exactly, she will have real skills, and experience with real companies already.  AND they have a dual enrollment program so that she can earn college credits while she is there.  She can earn 24 college credits in the 3 year program.  And they are only like $40/credit!  And they are credits that will transfer to (most) colleges.  SO she still has that choice.  Yay.

I’m excited, can you tell?

I got kinda sidetracked there… but what happened last night was that we didn’t go until way later than I had planned because we were waiting for Kid1 to feel better.  Then I had to quickly defrost and cook something to feed people at home.  Then hubby finally decided he was coming so we had to wait for him to shower.  And by then it had been too long for that 3:30 ativan to still be  much good.  Or at least I was worried it wouldn’t be ok and I had plenty to time to continue to freak out about going there…  So I took another one around 6:00.  And Oh my gosh I was in a fog.  Ick.  But it worked, no panic attacks anywhere in site. We had a nice long conversation with the teacher and it was well worth the trip.  I slept HARD last night.  I didn’t get up with my alarm at 5:45am.  Kid2 woke me up 7:00.  Kids1 & 2 walk out for the bus at 7:15.  I usually get Kid3 up at 7.  Kid2 got us both up today.  Ha.

So I had a drugged kind of sleep last night.  It was a deep sleep.  And I feel great today!   :)

Tonight is Kid2’s 13th birthday party sleepover.  So much to do and trying to have a good plan for activities to keep the drama at bay.  It’s been so hard with these boy crazy girls. Last time some of them were here – about a month ago – there was so much drama! It was terrible.  And they were mean.  Just mean.  Mean to my other kids, rude to me, fighting with each other.  It was ridiculous.  I told Kid2 this is her chance to do it the right way – or sleepovers are done.  D O N E.    So I have a bunch of activity ideas.  You need a bunch cuz they’ll probably hate most.  And instead of me making a cake, they are going to make cupcakes and decorate them themselves.  Kid2’s BFF especially likes to cook and I figure that will keep them busy for a while.  We’ll see how it goes.

Happy Friday everyone!

And the “snow” is back on wordpress!  I love the snow :)

Teen Drama – Boyfriends, Flirts, Bullies & Sexting

Wow – what a title.  Unfortunately that is what kid1’s world has included lately.  Oh, the things they learn in high school!

Kid1 is in 7th grade.  We are a small town, our high school is grades 7-12.  What a very icky first year of high school.

The girls in her class are causing so much drama!  Ugh

Luckily Kid1 has not gone completely boy crazy yet.  She is immature.  Sometimes that drives me completely nuts.  Now though, I am thankful for it.  :)

There are a group of 5 girls, kid1 included, that have been friends forever.  This year they have turned on each other like dogs.  Seriously.  It’s all over boys!

One girl has had like 6 different boyfriends this year.  It’s ridiculous.  And of course I know about this because she updates her facebook status constantly.  As much as facebook annoys me because of the drama I see going on there, it certainly is one way to keep up with what is going on in these kids lives, which means I get to understand what is going on in my daughter’s life a little more too.  Problem here is that this girl’s mom has no idea how her daughter is.  I seriously think she still looks at her like she is 5 and believes she’s still a little angel.  That is a problem.  This little girl is a liar,  I have seen her in action.

Another girl, for whatever reason, has become the worst flirt ever and seems to target any boy one of her “friends” likes.  There has even been sexting!  Are you kidding me?!?!  These girls are 13!

Sexting :the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photographs, primarily between mobile phones.

Another girl, kid1’s closest friend (up until this year), is like the most popular girl in jr high right now.  She is sweet, fun, kind….  but o so cliquey.  That got her in trouble.  So while she is not actively participating in bashing the flirty girl, she kinda goes along with it and has become bffs with the girl with all the boyfriends.

Kid1 has managed to remain pretty neutral through it all, although recently she has been hanging out with the flirty one more & more and has been defending her, saying she has done nothing wrong and the other girls are just over-reacting and being mean.  I asked her, what about the cell phone pics?  She said they weren’t that bad.  I asked her if she saw them, she said no, but flirty girl told her that they weren’t that bad.

I happen to know they were pretty bad cuz flirty girls mom is a friend and she freaked out when she found out all this happened and flirty girl lost her phone for quite a while.  (Not long enough though if you ask me.)

The last girl in the group, let’s call her abusive girl, is constantly hitting my daughter.  Grr.  Not like angrily punching her.  But like she will try to wrestle with her and she smacks her and tries to take her stuff.  I think she thinks it is fun?  I dunno.  It’s still bullying.  Like shes just rough-housing or something?  Anyway, kid1 has had it.  She has told this girl a gazillion times to knock it off.  In a gazillion different ways.  She has even hit her back.  I told her to knock her on her butt.  It has not stopped this girl.  Last week abusive girl actually BIT HER!  Kid1 said the girl wanted the label from he gatorade bottle and kid1 wouldn’t give it to her.  Abusive girl was hitting her etc trying to get it from her and then she bit her!

Kid1 said she had teeth marks in her arm!  I asked her where was the teacher when all this was happening?!?  It was in home ec,  Sorry but that class is a joke.  She said the teacher was there, but working on something with other kids and didn’t see.  Now, I don’t want my kids to be a tattle tale, but enough is enough!  I told her that would have been the perfect time to go to the teacher!  Just show her the bite marks in your arm!  Grr.

I think it is hard cuz kid1 considers this girl a friend.  I just don’t get it.  I really wish kid1 could resolve this herself.  I mean if I have to call the girl’s mother and say, “please tell your kid to quit hitting mine…” like they are 3 years old… all that is gonna do is make abusive girl mad at kid1.  If kid1 can make her point herself, she gains the respect of abusive girl and her peers who are also sick of abusive girl hitting them too….

I told kid1 she has to repeat again and again, DO NOT HIT ME.  And then not be nice to the girl!  Give her the silent treatment or something until this girl gets that kid1 is serious.  I think that kid1 has been telling her this, but then continues to be her friend, so she doesn’t take  her seriously.

I am thinking about emailing the home ec teacher today.  SHe is this young, fun teacher that all the kids just LOVE.  Makes me a little mad how much they just love her to bits.  That’s another story.  Ha.  But anyway, if I can get her to be on watch for this to happen, maybe she could make it stop.  Or maybe this fun, young thing of a teacher has no control in her class anyway.  Which is kinda how I think it is.  So she may not be effective at all.  I want to help kid1 with this but I don’t want to turn it into another huge deal for these kids.

2 of them actually have detention today!  Boyfriend girl and popular girl.  O my.  Parents are angry.  Flirty girl’s parent flipped out on the principal, demanding that her child quit being picked on and be given respect and this is what his punishment was.  Honestly, flirty girl needs to be in there with them.  She is the instigator.  What a mess.

I know my kid isn’t perfect either.  But she is really doing pretty good staying out of their drama!  I have told her time & time again that she needs to be careful hanging out with this flirty girl.  She will make enemies quickly.  And she better not act that way!

“You are judged by the company you keep.”

Just venting today I guess.  Truly don’t expect anyone to read & actually be able to follow all this!  Ha!