peskypippi.comBecause I have a lot to say…

My son is about to graduate from the eighth grade. There is to be a graduation ceremony at school.

My husband and I joked that we’re not really celebrating the academic accomplishments of his completing the 8th grade. Indeed, we are awfully proud of our son, but we sort of have higher academic aspirations for him that go beyond the eighth grade. We’re not exactly living in Little House on the Prairie times. It’s almost a redneck joke, “I’m so proud of you son! You’re an Eighth Grade Graduate!”

No, not that.

Regardless. I know I will cry when Pomp and Circumstance starts playing.

I will cry because I know that this is a milestone in my son’s young adulthood. The letter from the principal summed it up: “this marks the end of your child’s elementary education.” My son will soon close his elementary chapter, and will start the next chapter in his life: high school. That’s it. Tears are hitting already.

Graduations always get me. I can’t help it. They are both endings and beginnings.

But I know that while I will be tearing up, I will also be bursting with pride, and looking forward–supporting my son–as he makes his way ahead.

How many plastic spider rings does it take to raise a child from toddler to teenager? In our case, 500.

I invested in a whopping bag of plastic spider rings, when my oldest son was about three. Five hundred of them. “These will come in handy to top cupcakes, to add to goody bags, and to play jokes on people,” I had thought. Whoa! So many fun times ahead!

Well. My oldest son just turned 14 years old this week. When it was time to decorate his cake, I rummaged through the bin where I keep cupcake papers, food coloring, sprinkles, birthday candles, and plastic spider rings.

There was only one spider ring left. What?!

We had finally exhausted our supply. I had baked an abundance of cupcakes over the years to deliver to school functions, added the rings to birthday goody bags, and distributed them at Halloween.

The rings marked milestones in my son’s life. They took him from toddler to teen. And now, the spiders are gone.

But the other day, as my son stood there in the kitchen–standing 6 ft. 1 in. tall–he tasted his mud pie birthday cake and giddily shrieked, “This is your best cake yet, Mom!”

His enthusiasm and kindness are reminders that despite age (and height), he is still the same on the inside.

As if it’s not enough to raise our children to be kind and confident, smart and self-sufficient, and resilient and resourceful, we also need to teach them to cook.

Yikes!

A panic washed over me last Summer when I realized that my (newly teen) son did not know how to make anything. Other. Than. A. Sandwich.

I felt that he was well on the road to being kind, confident, smart, resilient, and resourceful…but might be lacking in the self-sufficient department.

Resourceful in the kitchen? Yeah, kinda. My son was a pro at microwaving soup, frozen burritos and instant oatmeal. He also used the can opener like a whiz! Opening fruit cocktail like nobody’s business.

Frozen burritos and instant oatmeal will only get you so far.

But could he create something from scratch? Not so much.

I knew what I had to do. Teach that young man to cook!

Cooking 101: creating self-sufficient young adults. (Also known as: creating patient parents who lack proper cooking skills themselves.)

Yikes again!

We began with simple items. Grilled-cheese sandwiches. Scrambled eggs. Quesadillas with refried beans.

We also learned:

• How to cut up vegetables and serve with Ranch dip.
• How to cut an orange into slices.
• How to hardboil an egg. And then proceed to peel and slice it.

This progressed into:

• How to make a smoothie in the blender out of yogurt, juice, frozen fruit, and protein powder.

Ta da! He now knows how to make a few well-rounded meals.

Slowly but surely, my son is expanding his food-making repertoire. I am convinced that he will be self-sufficient in the kitchen someday, and be happy as a result.

And this makes me happy.

Sleepy-eyed, slow-walking, nearly-staggering.

That’s my teen son in the early morning, before school.

He mumbles good morning and greets me with a hug. I whip up breakfast. Bacon and eggs. An English muffin. Sometimes hot chocolate. Sometimes oatmeal. Sometimes fruit.

Whatever it is, he eats with enthusiasm.

My son is certainly old enough to make his own breakfast.

A pro, in fact. He has mastered scrambled eggs. And microwave burritos.

Instead, I could use this morning time to log on and get some work done. Or start a work out.

But no.

It’s our 10 minutes of together-time.

My breakfast buddy. It’s a good morning.

I had the opportunity to write a letter to my teenage self for www.semidomesticatedmama.com.

At first, it felt a little like, well, like homework. Blah.

But as the remembering kicked in–the good and the not-so-good–it was a great exercise in self-reflection and self-assessment. Check it out here:

http://www.semidomesticatedmama.com/2012/06/letter-to-my-teenage-self-pesky-pippi.html

Or below:

Dear Pimpled Pippi,

1. Don’t sweat the pimples. They will go away in time for your wedding.
2. Participate more in class. You are a smart cookie, Pippi. Raise your hand and answer the damn questions. You KNOW the answers.
3. Stick with kissing. You’ll be happy you did.
4. High school grades aren’t THAT important. I mean, do you list your high school GPA on your resume? Uh, no.
5. Peer pressure is stupid.
6. Don’t take things so seriously. High school is a mere four years in a big, long life. (Unless you’re a little slow, then it might be five years. Just saying.)
7. Tanning with SPF 4 is stupid. That sun damage will catch up to you. When you’re a blogger.
8. Don’t worry so much about what people think. What’s most important is what you think of yourself. Chances are, you may never see the majority of these people again. Except later on in life. On Facebook.
9. Avoid rum and Coke. It’s a horrific combination that makes you vomit. At the dance. Yeah that.
10. Think of boyfriends as disposable (like your prom dress), not marriage material. You’ll have more fun.
11. You’re not fat. In fact, you’re probably the skinniest you’ll ever be.
12. Try out cheerleading. Or volleyball. Trial and error is a good thing. Don’t regret missed opportunities.
13. Self-tanners turn you orange. Enough said.
14. Racing to get signatures in your yearbook is kinda dumb. Because later on, when the yearbook gets water damaged, you end up throwing it out.
15. Don’t buy a senior ring.
16. Increase your self-confidence. Enough said.
17. Go on. Eat all the Doritos and pizza you want. Your metabolism rocks.
18. Hold your head up high and walk proudly. Don’t hide behind big hair and a nervous laugh.
19. There will always be mean girls. Their meanness will bite them in the ass. Karma.
20. Be yourself. Everyone likes you the way you are. Duh.

Love,
Wiser-and-more-confident Pippi

How would YOU grade your high school experience? What would YOU say to your high school self? C’mon, give it a try. You might be glad you did.

The song Faithfully by Journey brings me back.

Back to the high school dance in the gym with the hardwood floors and the sweaty teenager bodies. The boys smelled like Drakkar Noir. The bodies pressed against each other for the slow songs, and for the last song.

I wore my hair big and my leggings skinny. Shoulder-padded blouse with a cinch belt. Heavy eyeliner. Minty-gum breath (always).

I clung onto some boy, as he smashed against me.

It was 1984.

This song is kinda bittersweet for me.

When Faithfully ended, it was my cue that the coach would soon transform into a pumpkin.

The lights in the gym turning back on was a rude awakening. The realities of pimpled faces in your face and my 11:00 p.m. curfew looming. No after-the-dance parties for me. When the dance ended, it meant one thing: time to go home.

But I would go to bed replaying the wonderful night in my head, with still a hint of Drakkar Noir on my neck, left by a boy.

Who knew that my first open-mouthed kiss would be as a Freshman in high school, with a lanky boy with braces, who had just eaten peanut butter?

It all began when I was a Freshman in high school. Dating an older boy. It was raining. I remember the smell of his wet shoes. Big shoes with dirty laces. We started up a game of Monopoly at his house. Led Zeppelin was playing in the background.

Where were his parents? Who knows. We were latch-key kids. What had I told my mother about my whereabouts? Some lie.

What I was prepared for, was to win at Monopoly. My strategy is always to buy all of the oranges and reds and yellows–maybe even all of the railroads–and take over the game. What I wasn’t prepared for was that first real kiss.

Wet mouth. Slobber. Braces. Peanut butter.

It wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t quite what I had hoped for.

I had been imagining that kiss for years. Even practiced on my arm. And in the mirror.

I had hoped for minty breath. Or cinnamon breath. I was gum-chewer (still am), always paranoid that my breath is “kissing ready.” I was picturing, in my romantic mind, that the kiss would go like this:

But the reality was more like smashing faces. Hitting teeth. And chin slobber. I was partly to blame. I was new at this. He was two years older.

What I couldn’t get over was that peanut butter smell. And the smell of rain-soaked shoes and clothes. They say smells bring you back to a memory.

Whenever I get a whiff of that peanut-butter-and-dank-shoes smell, I will forever remember my first make-out session as a blossoming teen.

What was your first real kiss like?

I worked at Sizzler as a teen. And though minimum wage was under $4 per hour at the time, I made up for it in fried shrimp and chocolate cake.

At Sizzler, for, like, $8.99, you could order a steak, soup and salad bar, and all-you-can-eat shrimp. People came to the restaurant in droves. And they usually had hefty appetites.

I had a hefty appetite.

My black apron sported handy front pockets, plenty deep for about 20 shrimp at a time. Beautiful, golden, salty, tasty little suckers.

Like Bubba, it was shrimp for lunch, shrimp for dinner, shrimp during my shift, shrimp while on my break.

Oh and the triple-decker chocolate cake at the dessert bar? Slices were a little harder to stash in your pockets, but let me tell you, it could be done. And that cake was divine.

Shrimp and chocolate cake will just never be the same.

Where did you work as a teen? Feel free to share your funny story!

I don’t know about you, but when it’s cold outside, I like to wear a coat. When it’s rainy, a water-repellant coat. Duh.

Teens around here don’t like to wear coats. Even in a downpour.

A few years ago I bought my son a puffy winter coat. A coat that you could wear in the freaking tundra.

Well, this puffy coat has been at the center of many mother-son debates: to wear or not to wear.

The decision is usually: not to wear.

This reminds of Jerry Seinfeld and the puffy pirate shirt. Remember?

It’s the Seinfeld episode whereby Kramer’s low-talking girlfriend, a clothing designer, gets Jerry to wear a puffy pirate-like shirt on the Today Show. Jerry agrees, because he can’t hear what she is saying. When he realizes what he committed to, Jerry whines “But I don’t want to be a pirate.” He wears the shirt on TV and everyone laughs. Jerry is miserable and finally blurts out that it’s not his shirt and that he thinks it’s “the stupidest shirt I’ve ever seen.”

And then there’s the pick-your-battles theory. Is this puffy coat worth the battles that ensue? Nah. This puffy coat is now in the giveaway pile.

Let someone else have a pirate battle.