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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Life With My Teen

Little Boy is in the throes of his adolescent separation-individuation phase. Things can get emotionally confusing for everyone (usually me), despite the fact that I do have some rational grip on the phenomena.

It's an eye-rolling and throw-my-hands-up phase.

Thankfully, the foundations of judgment that I took care to lay down in primary school hold steady. The big things like sex... failing in school... drugs... hard partying... are non-issues. Little Boy is the one rolling HIS eyes when I start kidding about such outrageous behaviors.

Nonetheless, on a daily basis, there are enough little things to drive me up one wall and down the next. Little boy is just SO disagreeable.

Little Boy is now taller than I am. He also smells rather bad. He still has the tendancy to gambol around exuberantly like a puppy. When it's a puppy and exuberant, it's cute. When it's BIG and exuberant, it's not cute. It's violent.

When a smallish Little Boy crawls into bed between The Husband and me, it's cute. When a man-sized Little Boy crawls into bed between The Husband and me, I get pushed to the side of the bed... almost to the edge.

It's bad enough when a 3 year old says "Mom... play with me!" It's surreal when a 13 year old says "Mom... play with me!" Good golly! Play what?! So I proposed that we all go for a walk. I reached out to hold his hand whilst walking and recoiled as my hand touched a huge man-sized hand that had all the stickiness of a toddler's hand. I said "Go wash your hands!" Little Boy replied "Why? They're clean!!"

Next, The Husband commented "Wear proper shoes when you walk." Little Boy pointed to his flip-flops and declared in the face of clear evidence - "These are proper shoes."

Next, we disagree about the state of his room. For 3 weeks we couldn't clean his bedroom floor because he had some project going on all over it. There were bits of paper and ice cream sticks and liquid glue. I commented that his room was messy. He said "No it's not Mom. It's really quite clean."

We also disagree about bread. All his life I've endeavoured to feed Little Boy wholemeal bread with some success since I am the one who does the baking and the shopping. Lately, I've been saying "Wholemeal chocolate buns and cinnamon rolls are delicious." Little Boy said "No they're not. Please make white bread ones Mom!"



We disagree about vegetables. There was a time when Little Boy would eat his veggies obediently. Lately, I keep hearing "Mom... can I don't eat the green stuff? I'll replace with an apple instead?" Wail... wail... wail... I can't make him eat his vegetables anymore!!

It's ok. I'll survive. The trick to surviving this is to not sweat the small stuff... and to stop treating Little Boy like a kid, even though he still sometimes behaves like one. Expect him to be an adult and treat him like one. This means I'll have to accept that he won't eat his vegetables, clean his room nor eat wholemeal bread.

I should be happy that I need no longer worry about his exams... when he ends class... how to sort out his CCAs and all that.




2 comments:

Wen-ai said...

Haha. This is a funny post! Little Boy is not so little anymore!

Petunia Lee said...

Wen-Ai" Nope... he isn't so little anymore. He's almost a man. He's a man-sized boy.