An Update on Lovesickness, Nausea, and Algebra 2

I am the mother of a lovesick teenage girl. As much as I’d like to think her angst filled odyssey doesn’t involve me, I know that it does. It somehow entangles everyone else in the house, changing the dynamic of things, tainting so many dinner conversations, altering all of our summer plans.

It’s been almost an entire year since my fifteen year old has been in starry eyed love with a boy she met on the school bus, referred to here, not so lovingly, as Busboy.

Busboy is almost exactly one year older. He lives down the road. He is the first boy to pay her any real attention and so he has earned her unwavering devotion. Her admiration was so complete that he elicited very severe physical reactions in the form of violent retching…multiple times. Also, her constantly looping Busboy brain was incapable of processing complex algebraic formulas and so she failed math and was forced to retake the course during the summer. Strangely enough Busboy was also repeating Algebra 2, which meant they were in the same class for the same three hours four days a week, her seat conveniently behind his.

Sigh.

She managed to pass with a B in spite of it all. In spite of the fact that Busboy had a girlfriend that was not her, who he then broke up with, only to still not be interested in my daughter who had somehow managed to convince herself that if and when they did break up, he would come charging in to her arms bursting with the realization that they were truly meant to be together.

Except it didn’t exactly happen that way.

And sometimes he was mean to her. And sometimes she was hurt. And sometimes she was angry. And sometimes she texted him incessantly because she couldn’t help herself. And sometimes she looked for him in crowded malls or movie theaters because something inside her needed him to be there.

Sometimes I wanted to judo chop her in the throat in the hopes that the blinding pain would distract her long enough from her pining that she could reevaluate her motives and come to the conclusion that Busboy was kind of a douche bag.

The weird thing is that I have a distant connection to Busboy as well. My senior year of high school I sat behind his mother in drama class. When she got knocked up at the end of the semester, I was one of the people she confided in. The father lived five houses down from me and was coincidentally quite a douche bag himself.

After graduation, we lost touch despite yearbook vows to keep in touch (KIT) and never change.

Of course, she’s my Facebook “friend” whom I never actually communicate with.

But when I log on, I am likely to see her frequent updates and mobile photo uploads which almost always include the likeness of a certain Busboy. Yes, he is her doted upon awkward and acne prone baby boy who she loves more than life. I’m sure he’s a swell teenage son or as swell as any teenage son can be anyway.

I don’t have to like him though.

I am vicariously living teenage heartache all over again – humiliation, sorrow, despair – all swirled together in this offensive cocktail I didn’t ask for seconds of. But I am a mom, so it comes with the territory, the visceral reaction I have to the whole thing. I want to grab this kid and shake him. “Love her,” I want to shout in his pimply face, “She is awesome, way more awesome than any other girl in the history of awesomeness. Open your eyes, you little twit, you are not that special.”

I, of course, won’t do that because I might be arrested and then someone would have to write a Lifetime movie of the week about the whole thing and I’m pretty sure my anonymous teen daughter might not be able to forgive that degree of mortification.

But my loyalties are pretty clear. I’m on Team My Kid.

I’m fairly certain even if she ate puppies for breakfast, I’d still be on Team My Kid. I just hope it never comes to that.

Good Day Sunshine

Four days in to summer break and they’re already restless.

“Where are we going today?”

“What are we doing?”

Followed by the dreaded, “I’m bored.”

You know conditions are dire when the teenager pipes in with, “I miss school.”

She may be singing a different tune by this afternoon. Today we will attempt to enroll her in summer school because a straight D average along with failed midterms and finals, surprisingly enough, does not qualify as passing Algebra 2.

“I hate math,” she says. “I can’t focus.”

I get it. I do. Math was never my strong subject either, but I’ve learned with experience and age, just because you dislike a task doesn’t mean you’re not capable.

This is met with eye rolls. “Yes, Mom, I know.”

I am stating the obvious, things she knows but doesn’t want to hear verbalized, particularly by me because, duh, I know nothing and possibly she finds my voice nails-on-chalkboard grating.

I know she’s been distracted. By a boy. One boy. Who has been the source of all her ire, her woe, her inability to hold down food stuffs. He dominates all her conversations. Every single one inevitably gets steered toward the topic of busboy. If this is the only thing she knows how to talk about, I can only imagine that her thought pattern is on a constant loop of anger, betrayal, denial, and self pity punctuated by images of his grinning disembodied head. It leaves little room for quadratic equations and polynomials.

I wish I could shake her out of it.

We tried negative reinforcements, positive reinforcements, lectures, lectures, lectures, but she just couldn’t bring herself to give a shit.

Hopefully only having a single class to concentrate on will give her the advantage she needs.

Hopefully the teacher will be spectacular.

Hopefully the class room will be kept at a constant 73 degrees.

Hopefully the lighting will be conducive to learning.

Hopefully the planets will all align to create a environment that encourages mathematical understanding.

Hopefully a certain boy will conveniently fall of the edge of the planet and correspondingly her awareness.

Hopefully I can keep the other three children from strangling each other during waking hours, considering now our Monday through Thursday will be shot due to frequent shuttles to the high school and back because the school buses apparently don’t run during the summer.

Yay.

Have I mentioned it’s hot?

Boil in your britches hot.

Africa hot.

Lake of fire hot.

Maybe I can have the other kids start production on our in ground pool. Or they can dig to China, perhaps it’s cooler there this time of year.

Your Emotional Rollercoaster Makes Me Nauseous

He is a pretty boy, according to my daughter, and this in itself is almost too much for her.

The boy she has her heart set on, the bus riding boy who has incited her to toss her cookies on more than one occasion, has his own heart set on somebody else. Weeks ago this discovery prompted a sea of tears which I could only combat with a listening ear, a trip to Burger King, and a viewing of Zoolander in the comfort of Mom and Dad’s bed. This week, my conflicted teen made the bold decision to end her friendship with Busboy because it was causing her far too much strife, because she liked him LIKED him and it was clearly a one-way street, what with him pining after some other teenage girl and all.

She’d bucked up admirably through the better part of the day, so much so that I hadn’t been aware there was anything brewing outside the norm, the norm being screaming scampering children, endless homework battles, hurried dinners and long awaited showers to be taken. After the plates were cleared, I instructed my teen to load the dishwasher and locked myself in the bathroom for a good, steamy, twenty minutes. When I entered the kitchen, my hair still towel wrapped, the only half-filled dishwasher was yawning open and abandoned.

My daughter was in the bathroom herself. “You okay?” I called in.

“Yeah?” she choked out.

Something was amiss I suspected, but mostly I suspected my dishes were not going to get done.

Ten minutes later she walked out, her leaky eyes red rimmed, her nose dripping, shoulders collapsed.

She’d told Busboy she couldn’t be friends with him anymore. This boy she liked LIKED, this boy she’d kissed more than once, this boy who told her she was pretty and held her hand and made her feel good, who she incidentally still had to share a bus ride with, she had cut things off with, wished him a merry life, and said good-bye. It was a “friend” break-up.

I hugged her, I stroked her hair, I told her I knew it felt bad, that it would get better with time.

She crawled in to bed and stayed there.

After I did the dishes, I walked in to her room where she was still crying with her covers pulled up to her chin.

She’d been texting the boy and working herself in to a frothy lather.

“What happened now?”

Apparently “I hope you’re happy with her” wasn’t the true message she wanted to convey. The true message was something like “but I trusted you and told you stuff I’ve never told anyone and you were my first kiss and I’m so angry expletive expletive”. To which he responded angrily. To which she’d responded angrily. To which he responded angrily. To which she’d responded with “I hope you die a horrible death and possibly grown a painful boil on your rear end”. Maybe not verbatim, but surely you get the gist.

“I want to sleep in your bed, Mom.” She wailed.

I soothed, I comforted. I inwardly wished for the relative ease of the terrible twos which have nothing NOTHING on the teen years.

She was still crying the next morning. STILL.

She hadn’t slept, she couldn’t eat.

And this was just a FRIEND, only her first in what will surely be a series of heartbreaks. It’s like the flu. Your kid won’t just get one in their lifetime, you can immunize every flu season, but you’re going to have to nurse them through puking, diarrhea, fevers, and coughing regardless.

I felt just as useless and anxious. I couldn’t even load her up with Motrin and trust that she’d feel better in a few days.

“Can I get you anything? Why don’t you take a nap?”

And she did nap.

And hours later she got dressed, came out in to the living room and seemed better…chipper almost.

I was relieved, but still I worried.

My husband found the switch a little too abrupt. “What changed?” he asked her privately.

Change? Apparently my powers of perception were not at peak capacity…

Much had changed. For example, she’d apologized (via text message since nobody in their right mind uses the telephone anymore) and he’d accepted and they gone back to being friends and life was beautiful again – birds were singing, flowers were blooming, somewhere in the world, rainbows were stretched across clear azure skies. Never mind all that stuff she’d said about Busboy being a jerk who’d taken advantage of her affections and mopped the bus floor with her heart and then stomped on it with his big sneaker. He was super, she was super, the whole thing was super duper. Yay.

Seems like a lot of exerted effort just to avoid doing dishes, doesn’t it?

Sigh.

Because Strangulation Isn’t an Option

I was helping my tween find a science related newspaper article for her current event. Across the room, my teen was marveling at her own new found zest for homework assignments, how she’s not only caught up with her work, but is miraculously ahead of schedule. She was proud. By Junior year she hoped to be taking pre-calculus.

Of course, me, being the selfish, wretched parent that I am said, “That makes me happy.”

Of course, the temperature inside my heat controlled house immediately dropped about fifteen degrees.

“Ooookay, I’m not doing it to make you happy.”

Brrrr.

And.

WTF?

I chuckled because what I really wanted to do was choke her with my bare hands. (Only till she passed out, you know? Not a deadly throttling.)

“I’m not happy because it affects my life in any way, I’m happy because you’re motivated and you’re doing well and it’s going to benefit you, not me.”

“Ugh. Fine, that just makes me not want to do it anymore.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I say.

What I really want to say is, “You’re an ass.”

What I’m really thinking is, “Why do I not beat my children more?” “Why do I not drink more heavily?”

What I’m really feeling is exhaustion and defeat.

I have three potential teenagers down the line.

It makes my heart hurt.

A shot of my delightful girl at a recent family outing, during which she would rather have been getting elective oral surgery. Instead of participating, of course, she was doing what she loves best…

Excuse this mom-eye-roll, already in progress…

Cool, I can see my own brain from here.

Teen Angst, Karma, and Other Fitting Room Disasters

The day started off on a euphoric note. I’d gone to Old Navy to exchange some slacks, only to find they were ON SALE and I was owed a $15 cash refund.

I’m pretty sure my eyes lit up like road flares. I may or may not have kissed the cashier who was considerably taller than I was…

It was a pleasant surprise.

This was not $15 I wanted to put back in my pocket only to later spend it on some kid’s midweek snack. This was my money. $15 I would turn around and spend on not one, but two shirts. And another pair of pants, because you can never have too many pants. Or in my case, it’s more like I never have enough pants, since something is always getting torn, or stained, or painfully tight around the middle.

So yeah, I bought pants. Woot.

Riveting, no?

The sale was only going to last the weekend, so I figured since my girls both had $25 gift cards to Old Navy, it would be in their best interest to shop while they could get an additional 30% off on their purchases. To get the most out of someone else’s money.

For my tween, this was a pair of jeans and two tee-shirts. Easy peasy. It took all of ten minutes.

For my teen, fickle fifteen that she is, this meant wandering throughout the store in a somewhat agitated state, plucking clothes willy-nilly off the racks, begrudgingly trying them on, only to loathe the way she looked in the full length mirrors, after which she loudly denounced Old Navy and everything it stood for.

According to my daughter:

• The clothes were hideously unflattering and far too modest for anyone between the ages of 13 and 25. They were, however, acceptable for children and mothers, none of whom are very discerning about their appearances.
• The skinny jeans were blasphemously so, being that they were not anywhere near constricting enough to accurately carry that description.
• Old Navy was and IS the antithesis of cool. It was beyond her ability to effectively communicate the level of contempt it inspired in her, the closest she could come was a sound like “bleargghh” accompanied by a violent shudder accompanied by a theatrical eye-roll accompanied by fake retching.

“Seriously, you can’t find one thing you like?”

“Mom!”

“Look at those little shorts over there, they’re simple, you could wear them with any tee-shirt just to hang around the house or maybe go to the beach.”

“Mom! I. DON’T. LIKE. THOSE.”

That hissing sound heard in the immediate vicinity was me releasing some of the pressure building in my head before my brains exploded all over Old Navy’s inventory of generic clothing and mom-wear.

We were coming full circle though.

Twenty years ago I was the angsty teen, loathing every single one of my mother’s well meaning suggestions in favor of tight jeans and black tops and more black tops. While my mother held up brightly colored offerings of linen materials and slitted skirts, I did my own version of the fake retch and eye-roll, which involved a lot of crossed arms, gritted teeth, and the frequent tearful outburst.

It was painful for everyone involved.

We’d wander for hours.

I never liked anything.

I suppose I’m on the receiving end of some kind of payback for the grief I gave.

Still, after 20 years, I concede nothing.

Those clothes my mom insisted I buy?

They really were hideous.

My kid balks at khakis. I wonder what stirrup pants would do to her sensibilities.

Contrary as she is, she might love them just to spite me.

Sigh.

Like Mother Like Blogger

She wanted to get her feelings out, but diaries are so passé.

So she did what any other modern, 21st century, emotionally vulnerable teen girl would do. She started a blog.

Then proceeded to splatter the Internets with her tender guts, spewing her innermost feelings on a public forum for the whole wide world to access.

Of course nobody really knew it existed.

So she sent out a link.

To?

Cue the dramatic music.

None other than.

More dramatic music.

The object of her affection. The Busboy of her dreams. The kid who dominates a good 95% of her brain power and who of course was the only subject of said tortured blog post.

Her crush.

Who did not respond or give any clue that he’d read it.

If she’d asked me, as her mother, I’d have advised against it.

But she didn’t.

She asked a girl friend, via text, who after reading the post said, “Sure, do it, if you want to.” Teens can be so ambiguous.

Sigh.

She’d been obsessing ever since.

What would happen next? Would he read it? Wouldn’t he read it? Would he forward the link to 20 or 30 of his good buddies who would all share a good laugh at her expense?

Would the Earth ever stop its infernal spinning?

Wait, that’s not for another two years, right?

He must have read it, she told herself. Things were awkward between them. A new tension existed.

“So did you see the link I sent you,” she finally managed to ask, feigning nonchalance after a week of hand wringing.

Said the boy, “What link?”

Oh. The. Drama.

Humiliation Tastes a Lot Like Vomit

It wasn’t a date exactly. They were going to lunch at the McDonald’s across the street from our house. My fifteen year old had texted me from the bus to ask if it was okay.

I was hesitant. She’d have to cross a busy road on foot and she didn’t have her own money.

Busboy had offered to buy her a value meal.

Even through her text messages I could tell she was giddy. A meal with her crush, at a location outside of school, was full of possibilities for her.

I consulted my husband who gave a casual shrug. It seemed like a safe enough compromise, they’d have lunch nearby and I’d pick her up at the restaurant in twenty minutes after retrieving my other daughter from the middle school.

“Be safe,” I texted, “Stay in school, don’t do drugs.”

I was a little nervous for her. Anxious too about finally meeting this boy I’d heard so much, yet knew so little, about. The cynical part of me wondered if she’d only asked permission after the fact, maybe she’d already been on her way to the McDonald’s before she even bothered to contact me. Really, she could have been anywhere. How long would it be before she came to these same conclusions on her own? Before she realized how easy it was to deceive trusting parents?

I set out a few minutes after our exchange to pick up my tween from school. I had a couple of things I needed from the grocery store which was in the same shopping center as the McD’s, so I figured I’d give my daughter a few extra minutes of socializing while I stopped for soy milk down the way. Just as I pulled in to a really sweet parking spot I got a phone call. From the ring tone, I knew it was my teen.

“Hello?”

“Moooooom!” There was a weird echo to her voice. Something was clearly wrong.

“Honey, what’s going on?”

“Whanaminabatromanimommomibrfonafooaniomahohnoo…”

“Huh? What? I don’t know what you’re saying. Slow down.”

“Mom, I threw up in front of him! On our tray of food. OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod!”

“Okay, okay. I’m coming to get you.”

It took another fifteen minutes to convince her to walk out of the McDonald’s restroom and excuse herself from her ruined lunch, so she could get in the van. Busboy walked with her to the car and asked if he could have a ride. As they boarded stiffly, my daughter’s demeanor was hostile. Her humiliation had manifested itself as a seething anger she could do little to conceal.

We drove to Busboy’s house, the vehicle uncomfortably silent. I whistled awkwardly. Asked my tween how her day was. Drove. Drove, so Godforsakenly slow!

“Nice meeting you,” I offered as Busboy finally got out at his house.

He chuckled a little, gave my daughter a concillatory half-hug and walked off.

My daughter sobbed from that moment on for a solid two hours.

Mortification doesn’t cover it. She wants to drop out of school. She wants to move to Tibet. She wants the earth to swallow her whole. She wants time to run in reverse so she can take the cue her body was giving her and dart in to the bathroom to hurl in to a public toilet like respectable human being. Instead she thought to herself through her anxious nausea, “I’ll just drink more soda, that will make me feel better.”

Two seconds later she’d hurled on her surprised friend’s double quarter pounder.

“It could’ve been worse,” I tried to console her, “at least it didn’t land on him.”

It didn’t help much.

Hours later she granted me permission to blog about the ghastly event that will probably immortalize her in Busboy’s memory for years to come as the girl who puked on his lunch.

Tell me about your most humiliating teenage dating experiences. Misery loves company and perhaps somewhere in your comments my lovely, embarassed daughter can find some comfort in the fact that someone else had it way worse.

A little perspective goes a long way.

Deeply, Madly, In Like

I don’t want to be 14 again. It was rough enough the first time. Yet, as my oldest flirts with flirtation and takes those first tentative steps toward possibly swapping spit with some teenage boy, I find myself increasingly on edge, vicariously living the most awkward years of adolescence through my daughter.

Oddly enough I’m finding it more difficult than the first time.

Being a teenage girl kind of sucks. As I watch her, completely obsessed with this bus riding boy I know nothing about, I know the potential for heart break (or at the very least a hairline fracture) is fairly high. At her age, it’s all or nothing, you either love someone or you hate them, you’re laughing or crying, high or low, there are no in betweens. The passion with which she approaches even the most inconsequential exchange is staggering. Every word is infused with potential meaning, every expression or hand gesture something to be dissected and relived, over and over and over.

I worry for her.

Right off the bat, I’m leery, cynical. What does this boy want? What does any teenage boy want? But beneath that is my own unresolved insecurity, bubbling absently to the surface. Will her feelings be reciprocated? Will he respect her?

Yesterday when they exchanged cell phone numbers I was happy for her, despite the sinking feeling in my stomach. She spent the rest of the afternoon, flustered, scattered. Bouncing one minute, a pillow over her head the next. Should she text first or wait for him? If she did text, what would she write? Should she be funny? Aloof? Playful?

Jeeezus.

I tried to help where I could, offering up quirky one liners or bizarre statements that were met with my daughter’s exasperated eye-rolls.

Apparently I’m not funny.

Also, I’m weird.

In the end she went with a signature smiley face that prompted a simple exchange about exercise. Nothing special.

Monumental, still.

That communication was at the forefront of her pubescent brain. All. Night. Forget science. Ignore language arts. Feh. Busboy is a runner. Busboy is in shape. Busboybusboybusboybusboybusboybusboybusboy.

I think Busboy possibly created the entire universe with a sneeze.

Busboy.

I’m hoping beyond hope, my smart, sensitive girl will have enough self respect and confidence and knowledge to make good decisions. I hope I’ve prepared her for that.

But what is almost 15 years of parental guidance up against the far reaching insight of one handsome teenage boy?

I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

I won’t hold my breath.

I’m Just Not Ready and Random Tuesday Thoughts

• What? No, I’m not eating nachos for breakfast. Who told you that?

• Would it help if I told you it was more like scrambled eggs with salsa, tortilla chips, and melted cheese?

• Okay, so they’re breakfast nachos…You don’t know what you’re missing.

• My teen likes a boy who rides the bus with her. Among ourselves we call him Busboy. The reason Busboy is different from other shaggy haired kids she’s had crushes on is that yesterday he took the initiative and made an attempt to communicate with her. It went something like this:

Busboy: Snatches Teen’s iPod and begins scrolling through her playlist.

Teen: (after regaining use of her facial muscles which had been paralyzed with shock) What are you doing?

Busboy: Looking at your playlist. What are you gonna do about it?

Teen: Uh, nothing.

Busboy: Thought so. What’s your name, anyway?

Teen: …Teen…What’s yours?

Busboy: You have to pinky swear not to tell anyone. Pinky swear.

They then proceeded to pinky swear, after which he told her his name, which we’ll just assume is NotBusboy.

NotBusboy: So, you come here often?

Teen: Yeah, five days a week.

After this there was a weird exchange about the various genres of music they both appreciated and the common consensus that they hated Country above all else. This one mutual distaste led to a secret handshake initiation invented by NotBusboy seconds before he got off at his stop.

• I found this whole exchange rather silly and puzzling but one thing was evident.

“Honey,” I told my daughter after she breathlessly recounted their exchange, “I’m pretty sure that boy was flirting with you.”

“Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelly?” she squealed.

Ugh.

• Guess what the topic of conversation was at dinner…and before dinner…and after dinner…and through bedtime?

• If this little dialogue in any way, shape, or form evolves in to a dating situation, I’m pretty sure I’m going to need a hefty dose of antidepressants to get me through the next few years of adolescence… or a hefty dose of cheesecake, either one would work.

• Although I have to admit, it does make me grateful that I’m not an awkward, self conscious teenager. I’m just her mother.

Haven’t you heard? Random is the new Systematic.