"COM"

Ok..... Here I go on a MAJOR rant. I am soooo mad right now, this is probably not the best time to be venting, but I'm going to so - DEAL. For anyone that doesn't know, my oldest child is a 14 year old boy. Raising a teenager presents a hand full of obstacles, but I like to think my husband and I are doing a decent job. Let me back up the bus for a second by stating that I have always been dubbed the "CRAZY OVERPROTECTIVE MOM" and I'm totally ok with that title, if being that means that I am the only parent that checks and double checks on things, needs to know where my kid is at all times and with who, and refuses to allow my child to be in inappropriate situations for teenagers. Soooo, let's talk about what has me SOOOO flippin upset about tonight. I FINALLY decide to cave and let my son go to a girl's house to "hang out" with his friends (boys and girls). While I'm "COM"(crazyoverprotectivemom) I do realize that, at his age, I do need to let go a little and trust in all that we've taught him he will make the right decisions. While I know this to be true, I also know many other things to be true too.... Like - teenagers will be teenagers, teenagers DON'T always make the best decisions, and left unsupervised lord know what can and will happen. I digress... Anywho... I decide to cave and let him go, though he was going to have to be dropped off late because we had a family gathering to attend. So I get to the girl's house to drop my son off and as I pull in the driveway I say to him "I am coming to the door to talk to her parents." So up to the door I go, expecting to have a nice conversation thanking the parents for allowing the kids to come over and hang out. When my son knocks on the door I say, "Can I talk to your parents?" I get a bunch of girls looking at me like I am a one eyed monster and I hear "They aren't here right now." Ummmmmmm excuse me?!?! Then they try to back pedal and say "They'll be back in, like 10 minutes." So I politely ask my son to return to the car and he does, but is understandably mortified by me, his "COM." I try to explain how it is completely unacceptable and inappropriate for 14 year old boys and girls to be left alone at home together and I think, deep down, he totally gets that just as much as I get that it is embarrassing for him to be told in front of his friends that he can't stay. So the story I hear is that the dad of this girl had to leave for just a minute (or 10 minutes as the girls told me) to pick up the mom who was at a friends house that is "not far at all." And my only questions are: A) There is a 2nd car sitting parked in front of the house.... Why wouldn't that car have been driven to the "not far at all" friend's house, if you knew you were having a house full of 14year olds hang out for the night and B) if this "not far at all" destination is so "not far at all" then why wouldn't you walk home so the parent that is at home can continue to stay home and supervise the hormonal teenagers??!?!? I guess I'll never understand this lax form of parenting in this day and age. I'll never understand why some people think it's more important to be a "cool" parent, or a friend instead of a parent. But one thing that I do know for sure is that it is inappropriate and unacceptable for kids this age to be left alone unsupervised in someone's home on a Friday night. Call me "COM" all you want, I'd rather be called that, than GRANDMA!

So I've been thinking about blogging for a while but couldn't really decide if I wanted to or not. I tend to be rather scatter brained though, so I'll probably just write this one and forget I even have a blogging account, or for sure forget my password. Most of what I have to say is probably rather boring to most of you, as my days consist mostly of poop, whining, pouting and more poop. But I thought "Hey, all the cool kids are blogging, so I guess I will too."
When I was in high school I thought for sure I would be one of two things when I grew up. I was either going into nursing, or I was going to be a journalist (I did write for the Rebel Rouser afterall;). When I say journalist, I mean JOURNALIST. Not like that Harvey Meyer that writes in the South Side Journal (all due respect, Harvey) but a hard core journalist. However, neither of those career paths came to fruition and instead I became a stay at home mom. This actually ended up being the best choice for me for many reasons, let's face it - I'm not a morning person, I could never hold a job that I needed to be at before noon. Ok, let's make it 3:00 because we have a really difficult time making it to preschool on time and that starts at noon. Also, I could NEVER keep up with the hair changes a journalism gig would require, (most days my hair isn't even washed until well after 10am.) I have gotten pretty lax in my proper punctuation thanks to FaceBook, and cameras are not my friends.
Really the only thing I think I'm missing out on by not having a "career" is a paycheck. I love this stay at home mom thing I've got going here. I wouldn't have it any other way. I get to be with my kids through the most important years of their lives. I get to kiss their boo boos when they fall down, and I even get to catch an occasional episode of "The Price is Right." Like I said at the beginning, pretty boring but I am loving every minute of my kids growing up. I digress..... scatter brained.. see what I mean I have a bizzillion things running through my head at any given moment so to sit down at a computer and write something that flows seamlessly together isn't really my style. Right now I'm thinking, "how did I start talking about my ambitions to be a journalist when I'm really thinking that I need to get off of this computer, call direct tv to pay my cable bill, get the kids a bath and lunch before we head to preschool - Oh yeah, and I probably have to stop and get gas on the way.-we'll never make it there by noon!" And again, I just had to peel myself away from what I was saying to break up a wrestling match that resembled something from the little girl version of the WWF. So maybe this blog thing won't work out for me, but on the other hand maybe some day I will have the time and the quiet to sit down and actually gather thoughts and make sense of what I intend to write. For now I'll have to settle for 10 minutes of scatter brained blogging while my kids are screaming, wrestling and full of poop waiting for a diaper change. On that note, I must go. Go to enjoy the best job in the world.... Not a high profile journalist job, but a low profile SAHM ;)