Warning

When my middle son was two years old, I often dressed him in a tshirt that announced "WARNING! I am two." I thought this was fair warning to others, and funny at the same time. I mean, most people know two year olds can be impulsive and mercurial. It's the way two year olds are supposed to act.

In the last few weeks I've had an almost overwhelming desire to dress the same son in a shirt that reads "WARNING! I am thirteen." Not that he would wear it. But others might need the warning because they may not remember that thirteen year olds are also impulsive and mercurial. And moody and forgetful and arguementitive. The tshirt would be useful because visually, it's a bit hard to detect a 13 year old. For my son, his braces and Bieber hair should give it away but his height and stature suggest an older, more mature young man, which is about to emerge. Any. Day. Now.

Update on Phrases of the Year 2012

Winter sunset in California

Where has January gone? It has sailed by, with warm sunny days, cold nights, and a lot of time in the kitchen and portable locker room car. January 1st, 2012 we made some New Year's resolutions of sorts. Each person in the family chose a word or phrase for the year. After a little more than a month, our phrases are still resonating with us.

Listen; my word of the year. I'm consciously, more deliberately, listening to my kids, my husband, and my own inner voice. I'm listening to podcasts; This American Life, Fresh Air, RadioLab, The Splendid Table, New Yorker: Fiction. I'm wearing earrings that read "in one ear" on one, and "out the other" on the other. I'm listening to some new music, some sent to me on a CD by my friend Nicole. I'm still trying to figure out what all the songs she sent me have in common, it is quite the eclectic mix. My secondary word, polka dot, has informed my recent purchase of new socks. They will not get mixed up with the boy's atheltic socks and they won't be tempted wear them either.

My youngest son's phrase, shut up, has been challenging for him. He is a classic extrovert and his thought processes are verbal. Learning to curb this verbal effluence is challenging for him, both at school and at the dinner table. His brothers take great joy in telling him to shut up on a regular basis. He has been very good-natured about it and has become a bit more aware of when his constant stream of information and random thoughts are not so welcome. It's a hard task for a kid whose brain works so quickly and makes so many connections. Rather than telling him to shut up, I prefer to gently remind him that sometimes his thoughts should stay in his head and not come out his mouth. He is eleven years old right now, and I find myself wondering what he will be like in the grunting, non-verbal early teen years. I think he might skip right over that phase.

My middle son chose the word participation. He has already gotten straight to work on this one. He is in eighth grade, and his school has a tradition of putting on a musical with everyone in the grade. Mandatory auditions were held just after the new year. The students are asked to give a preference of a leading role, a supporting role, a member of the chorus, backstage, or set design crew. His first inclination was to be a member of the chorus or backstage crew. He has never been in a musical before. In fact, I haven't even heard him sing since his voice changed. But rather than play a palm tree in the background, he took a risk and chose to audition for a supporting role. Much to his shock and surprise (and to be honest, fright) he was cast as the male romantic lead, Daniel Beauxhomme. I was very surprised too, and I am unreasonably excited to watch him perform on stage.

My oldest son's phrase is stand out. It was inspired by a conversation he had with a teacher. As a freshman at a large all boys high school, I think he has already done an amazing job of standing out in a highly competitive environment. He is a cross country runner and a member of the freshman soccer team, takes several honors classes, and has a 4.0 GPA. Right now he sees himself as an athlete and a musician, and standing out means maintaining his commitment to sport, school and music. I'm curious to see how his phrase influences him in the next year.

My husband's phrase, mathematical balance, is still a mystery to me. I don't understand it or relate to it, or aspire to it. I don't like to balance a checkbook and I avoid Excel at all costs. He is the master of accounting and spreadsheets and balancing. He declined to elaborate on if or how his phrase is working for him so far in the new year. One way I can tell you it is working, though, is the fact that he is fourteen pounds lighter than he was on January first. He has committed himself to a lifestyle of healthier eating which has had some dramatic effects. And hallelujah the snoring has gone away, which is something I am happy not to listen to. It really is worth all the extra time in the kitchen!

One of the unexpected, and wonderful, results of our New Year word or phrase is the family conversation it has generated. It's something we touch on more often than I would have expected, usually at dinner. We are supporting each other and already celebrating some achievements. Each person's word influences other family members in a subtle and interconnected way. It's an interesting touchpoint that (as corny as it sounds) does seem to highlight the strength of family, which is a welcome thing when you have teenagers.

Listen Up: Happy New Year!

New Year's is not a big holiday around my house but I always find myself doing a lot of thinking about the year that passed and the year ahead. I am not necessarily a big fan of resolutions. I usually forget them or break them a week later. So this year I decided to try out something I've been hearing about: a word of the year. Its sort of a theme you pick for yourself, embodied in a word, that can carry through the year and touch different parts of your life. It's more meaningful than a list of get a new job, lose ten pounds, finish that project, exercise more, clean out the junk drawer, and learn another language.

I started talking about this and auditioning words a few days before New Years. I threw the idea out to two friends and then started a journal page to record all the words we brainstormed about. It wasn't hard to come up with a lot of words, but it is hard to settle on one word I want to live with for the whole year. I can be fickle.

The Webster Dictionary word of the year for 2011 was pragmatic. I'm not sure I need more of sensible and realistic in my life. This word is just too, well, pragmatic for me.

Some words I auditioned and liked were cleanse, play, zesty, make, light, coffee, enjoy, beach, and France. Prioritize, focus, connection, and reinvent also made the list. Several different countries and colors made my list. The word list did not.

The word I chose, that seems to call out to me, is listen. That is my word for 2012. I'm not entirely sure why I chose it or where it will take me. I will try to listen more, or better. To my kids, and to myself. To music? Audio books? To my own intuition? Maybe I'll get my hearing checked. Who knows?

I encouraged my boys to try out this idea too. They have all chosen something. My oldest has chosen stand out, inspired by a conversation he recently had with a teacher. My middle son has chosen participation. I'm not sure of the inspiration for that one, he just said it's the right word for him. And my youngest son has chosen shut up. He says its because he talks too much. My husband is trying out the phrase mathematical balance. He says it has something to do with a bunch of Skittles he was eating forming a perfect pyramid but I have a feeling it is more than that.

One of my good friends picked enjoy as her word. I like this word, and it is sure to be fun and enlightening. Another friend is trying to decide between patience and resolve as she is anticipating her oldest son becoming a teenager this year.


Even though the idea is to have just one word, I'm very tempted to add another more whimsical and fun word to my year. Polka dot. OK, it's two more words, but they go together.

Stay tuned for how this theme idea works for us. Happy New Year! And please leave a comment if you have chosen a word for your year, and why.

Merry Christmas!

The boys in my house were entirely uninterested in decorating the tree. They didn't want to help do the lights either. So I decided to decorate it in my own way, and boy was it fun!

Each Barbie is dressed in her fanciest dress and it makes for a very colorful tree. It is really quite beautiful.

I just can't seem to get the boys to pose by the tree for a photo this year. I don't understand it.

Ha.

White lights and more than 35 Barbies
adorn my tree this year.

A Christmas dress!

This one was nominated "Most like a Los Gatos mom" of the Barbies on my tree.

Sparkly tights with a miniskirt.

The sneer on this Barbie's face just kills me.

Accessorize!

One of several dreamy pink dresses.

Red catsuit with a red coat and fur collar.

Her hair is crazy complicated.

The tree topper is a Christmas Barbie.

My tree had just one Ken and he is wearing a gold lame mesh shirt.

Yes her dress really does match her hair.

I wish a special Merry Christmas to all of those moms of boys out there.

I Drive A Portable Locker Room

Can you relate?
Order the shirt here!
There is a generic version and a Bellarmine version.

The Text that Almost Made My Heart Stop, and Not In A Good Way

One of the parental responsibilities I don't particularly enjoy is monitoring my sons' cell phone use. I'm not super turbo about it but I do check in once in a while. This mostly involves looking over text conversations and Facebook activities and a little bit of email. To encourage responsible use I have one of my sons "park" his phone in my room at night where it charges and gets the rest it needs. Just the other day, I was a little surprised when I saw a late-night text come in, lighting up my bathroom with a blue glow. Mildly curious, I got up to see what it was. It was from a girl I don't know. And it contained the phrase "blow job."

WWHHHHAAAAAATTTTTTT?

After a complete freak-out which involved my husband and I throwing the phone to each other and yelling in whispers, we determined an immediate conference with the owner of the phone was in order. And I mean NOW. After a frank conversation (oh wow no pun intended) with our son, in which I was forced to utter the words "blow job" to him more than once, the situation came into focus. We determined that my son's cell phone had gotten in the wrong hands. Hands that sent wildly inappropriate texts to some of his contacts. And, it turns out, some of his contacts aren't all that appropriate in their responses either.

It's quite obvious that the thirteen year old girl that responded to texts from my son's phone doesn't have a parent paying any kind of attention to her phone. And thank god. I would have gotten one irate phone call and rightfully so. But that parent would also have seen the provocative response she sent to my son. Which I deleted. And the photo that followed the next day. Which I also deleted. 

I'm pretty sure this is the expression I had while reading the texts on my son's phone.

Teenage cell phones are a contradiction of private and public conversations. They often confuse what is, or should be private, and what is public. Despite the fact that I was able to verify that my son did not send the texts in question, I feel he is still responsible for what is sent from his phone. He needs to protect his phone and not let others use his phone or learn his password. Since he almost always has his phone with him, my son's friends sometimes "borrow" it from his baseball bag or locker, and then have access to his text messaging and contact list. He claims he can't control what other people do on his phone but I don't understand how other kids think his phone and the information on it is to be shared. As an adult, I would never grab a friend's cell phone from her purse and start looking through it and texting her friends. Yet some kids, both boys and girls, seem to think it's perfectly reasonable, or funny to do this. I view this as a real lack of respect and good judgement. Which, now that I think about it, is exactly how I would describe some teenage behavior.

At the same time, teens feel like their email, texts and Facebook posts are fairly private, limited to a recipient or group of friends. Here they are wrong again, because lots of people have access to that information, including parents, friends of friends of friends (which could be anyone really), and institutions. Figuring out limits and boundaries is something they are learning. In fact, it is something we are all learning, which is why the constantly changing privacy settings on Facebook are so maddening.

This is the funky phone I used as a teenager. It was the only one in the house and located on the kitchen wall. My sisters and I had to take turns. Yes it was rotary dial and no we didn't have to put money in it.

When I was a teenager, the only privacy issues I had involved the security of the lock on my diary and trying to whisper into the family phone in the kitchen so my little sister wouldn't overhear me. These were not so complex as the issues raised today with smart phones. They are wonderful and useful devices that seem to make the job of parenting a lot more complicated. Removing a phone from use is such a nice thing to do once in a while, it's like giving yourself a break. And I definitely need a break from reading text messages to my son from a young girl mentioning blow jobs and proclaiming I'm single! Call me!

I learned years later that my sister could easily pick the lock.

Have you looked at your teenager's phone lately?

It might give you a heart attack but you should check it out once in a while.