You better not be sexting!

Becoming the Teen Issues Examiner has definitely opened my eyes to a lot of things that, as a parent, I'd rather stay blind to. Not that I didn't realize that these things existed...but more because when you have the statistics to back up the issues then it makes it really hard to say "not my kid".

A recent piece that I did about "sexting" pointed to the fact that, in spite of all the media coverage, one out of five teenagers admits to sending or receiving a text message that would fall under the category of "sexting".

I read over the report, my mouth hanging open, wondering what in the world was going on. First you have kids sending nude photos through their cell phones, then you have those same children being charged with sex offenses and being forced to add their names to sex offender registries, and then you have the same demographic admitting to the fact that they are still engaging in these behaviors.

What in the world?

I yelled out to my teenage daughter who was in the next room.

"What are you doing?"

She appeared in the doorway holding her cellphone.

"What do you think I'm doing?" She held up the phone to display a message she was in the process of sending.

"You better not be sexting."

"Eww, mom." She said as she turned back into the kitchen, "That's just nasty."

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief...

Then made the mental note to keep a closer eye on her texting habits.

Being the parent of a teenager is hard work...

Rebuilding Frankenstein

About a week ago my computer started acting a little hinky...

Not in the mood to mess with diagnosing the real "problem", and confident that with the laptop as a backup I wouldn't suffer any serious withdrawl symptoms, I decided that I would just format my harddrive and start over.

Great plan.

Now don't get me wrong, sometimes the only choice is to just start from the beginning, but in this case reformatting the drive didn't fix anything since my problem was hardware related and not software related.

Anyway...that's besides the point.

So, for the last week I've been sitting here, my computer functional but essentially naked.

The first thing that struck me was my programs list...which had once stretched across three columns of my monitor. In an instant, it was reduced to only the basic choices offered by Windows.

The next thing...and most disturbing...were my gadgets.

I have a lot of gadgets, and every one of them has a USB cable connected to my computer.

There are so many USB cables attached to my computer that my desk resembles some kind of Frankenstein experiment.

We're talking an absurd number of gadgets...so many that when my son asked me what I wanted for Christmas last year my reply was: "A 7-port USB hub, please."

Oh yeah folks, I have a problem. And seconds after re-booting my computer after my brilliant plan to reformat my drive, I realized that my problem was biting me right in the butt.

A series of rather irritating Windows prompts began to display on my screen:

"Unknown hardware found"

For every single gadget that came with a cable there was a disk somewhere that held the necessary software for my computer to know what it was...

That's a lot of disks...

Cause there are a lot of cables...

Cause I have lots of gadgets...

So what are my plans for the day?

Rebuilding Frankenstein.

Bring Your Dog to Work Day

When I first heard that today was "Take Your Dog to Work Day" I knew it would be a great idea for my office.

For one, my office is generally pretty low key on Friday's...
For another, I work with several dog owners...
And most of all, it was an excuse to take my dog to work.

All in all the inaugural event at our office went rather well. There were no fights, and no one got bitten....just plenty of treats and lots and lots of love.

Who knows...
Maybe we'll do it again next year!

(Pictured are: Me, Gemini the Wonder Mutt, Guinness the Super Pooch, and Emily)

Teen Issues?

When I got the opportunity to write for examiner.com I was excited to take the gig.

After all, if a girl can't have a long list of her own links to pimp out then is she really a girl worth knowing?

I went through their rather lengthy process of review and finally received notification that I was a full fledged examiner. My title? Teen Issues Examiner.

Shouldn't be that difficult. After all, I do have teenagers....and they do have issues....

My first official day "on the job" I decided that I would do a bit of research and find out what kind of information other parents with teenagers were searching for...my first page of googled results were disheartening:

Drug abuse

Underage drinking

Sexual activity

Pregnancy

STD's

Eating disorders

Depression

As I browsed the list of teen "issues" I wondered if I had missed the "no return" policy that followed the final chapter of What to Expect When You're Expecting.

For new parents Google results are filled with pages of the first years of childhood. Your heart is warmed with pictures of sleeping infants and wobbly first steps. Your eyes get teary with images of babies snuggled against their mothers chest or grasping tightly to their fathers finger.

As children grow the images are of them learning to read or drawing pictures with a rainbow of different colors. You smile as you see photos of children learning to ride a bike or catching the school bus on their first day of kindergarten.

Fast forward to the teen years where the images are of some emo looking kid with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, and a piercing stuck in her nose as she stands next to her boyfriend holding a beer in one hand and a bong in the other.

It's just disturbing.

If one were to pick up a copy of any parenting magazine or book it would lead you to believe that it all stopped once they reached age 12. That by the time they were on the cusp of teenager-hood it was all over.

Books and magazines for parents of anyone 13 or older usually come with an appendix for drug and alcohol rehab centers across the US.

It's just sad.

It's no question that there are plenty of dangers that threaten our teenagers, but I firmly believe that their issues go beyond drug addiction or eating disorders:

Gaining self esteem

Building self confidence

Developing good relationships

Finding their first job

Figuring out how to manage money

Learning how to become an adult in a world where they have only known how to be a child...

Maybe if parents were given more information on how to teach these things to their children then the other issues wouldn't even exist.

The Great Outdoors

My son, after having just graduated, decided that it would be a fun summer adventure to go on a hiking/camping trip with a group of his friends.

I'll admit that I was a bit shocked since my son isn't exactly the outdoors type.

"That's your fault," he insisted when I pointed out the fact that the last time he had been camping was when he was 5 years old.

He wasn't wrong, I'm not much for "roughing it". While I enjoy nature and can appreciate certain nonthreatening forms of wildlife, I'm not a fan of being seperated from the modern conveniences of society....like a toilet.

Regardless of the fact that spending a week in God's country wasn't my idea of a "vacation", I fully supported his desire to go on the adventure. After all, I thought, you're only young once.

"So where are you planning to go?" I asked.

"We're going to hike the Knobstone Trail."

"All of it?"

"Yep."

Even though I'm not well versed on outdoor adventure I still know a thing or two about the Knobstone Trail....

Starting with the fact that it's a 58 mile hike through some fairly rugged terrain.

"Seriously?"

"Yep."

I shook my head in disbelief. No longer was this just a hiking/camping adventure with a group of friends....suddenly it was turning into a script from one of those low budget horror films.

"You saw the movie 'Wrong Turn' right?"

He laughed and nodded his head.

"And 'Friday the 13th'?"

"Yes mom."

"What about 'The Hills Have Eyes'?"

"You're being a downer."

"Parts 1 and 2?"

"Okay mom, I get your point."

"All those people were just going on a camping trip too."

He just shook his head and smiled.

"Just promise me one thing," I said using my serious mom voice. "If you hear a strange noise in the woods, for the love of God, run the other way."

I think as he's packing his camping gear I'm going to stash the video camera in his backpack. At least then when the search party recovers his belongings I'll have a 'Blair Witch' video to remember him by.

Word Shortage

I go through these phases when I suffer from a shortage of words.

Normally I'll sit at my desk and pray for a quiet moment.

A single solitary moment when the television isn't blaring...

When there isn't a line formed at the doorway with members of my family waiting to talk to me about something...

When there isn't twelve other things that need to be done all at the same time...

Normally those solitary moments are so few and far between that when they finally arrive I have no earthly idea how or what to do with them.

I was sitting at my desk just a few minutes ago. My son was reading in the living room. My daughter had gone to the baseball park to meet up with some friends. The house, for a solitary moment, was silent.

I checked my email.

Still silence...

I visited a few regular sites.

Still silence...

I knitted a bit on the scarf that I'll most probably never wear.

Still silence...

For a single solitary moment, I was bored.

Then a thought occured to me: "You should really use this time to write something."

But what?

I pondered a bit trying to think of something crafty and creative to write about.

I was coming up with nada.

Then another thought occured to me: "It's always easier to write once you start writing."

It seems a bit silly when you think about it...but really it's true. Writing is a lot like cleaning the house, it seems like a daunting task...one that you'll never complete...one that you aren't even sure how to start...but once you start doing it then it suddenly gets a lot easier.

So...

I grabbed my handy dandy tiny computer and relocated myself from the silence and moved outside where I became immediately surrounded by the sounds of people mowing grass and small children playing....

As it turns out, it wasn't a solitary moment of silence that I needed in order to overcome the word shortage...

It was just a change of scenery...

And a small adjustment to my attitude.

Happiness is..

Sitting outside with my tiny laptop and eating some mixed berry flavored yogurt that I jacked from the fridge.

Don't tell my daughter....she laid claim to the yogurt the moment she slipped it into the grocery cart.

"But mom," she said with her patented eyelash maneuver, "it's 99% fat free."

As if that made a difference one way or the other.

"Doesn't that mean you'll hate it?" I replied as I maneuvered the cart down past one of the 'under construction' aisles at the local Wal-Mart.

"Well you're always saying that I snack to much, I thought you'd be happy that I chose a healthy snack."

"Then why is there a family size bag of tortilla chips and an extra large jar of salsa in the cart already?"

She snickered and tried to cover her loot with the bags of produce that I had put in the cart.

"To late kiddo, you're busted."

"But mom," she whined softly, "they were calling to me."

I'm certain they were. My daughter's true vice is her obsession with chips and salsa, which she could easily turn into a meal every night of the week. Of course I've lectured about healthy eating habits, not snacking constantly, and about portion control, but she is content to ignore my lectures.

"One day my darling child, you're going to wake up and all of those chips and salsa are going to have landed right on your rear end."

She laughed, the same laugh she uses when she thinks I've made a joke.

"Don't hate me for my metabolism."

"Good word choice."

"I know, huh? That was a smart word."

"Very smart."

"So then I can have the yogurt?"

"You going to put away the chips and salsa?"

"Wasn't planning on it."

"Didn't think so."

One day maybe she'll find out that I wasn't joking and maybe she'll regret all of the snacking she did during her younger years. In the mean time, while youth and a hyper active metabolism are still on her side, I think I'll just let her enjoy it.

"Everything"

The culmination of 18 years came last night as I watched my first born child accept his high school diploma.

I'm not generally an emotional person.
I don't get teary-eyed at weddings.
I don't get mushy when I hold a new baby.

But as I watched my little boy walk down that aisle wearing his cap and gown, a part of me melted.

At the same time that my face erupted in a giant smile, my eyes filled with tears of joy.
I was overcome with a sense of pride. The kind of pride you feel when you see the child you have raised accomplish one of life's many milestones.

He smiled, the way he smiles when he's really happy.

"I'm finally done."

"Now that high school is over, what are you going to do next?"

"Everything."

At this very moment, the entire world awaits the little boy I once held in my arms.

Nothing could make a mother more proud.