Invasion of the Body Snatchers

I wrote a post over a year ago on losing my identity as a mom as my kids grow to the ages where they won’t need me anymore.  Unfortunately, and little did I know at the time, that at a certain age, they stop caring, too.  About everything.  I can only hope that what everyone else is telling me – not to worry because it’s temporary – is true.

Nothing in this world drives me more crazy, and breaks my heart more, than seeing your intelligent, talented, beautiful child stop caring about the things that were once so important to him.

 

In this case, it’s school and his grades.  He just doesn’t care.  I’ve tried everything to motivate and encourage him…

“Your grades need to be good to play sports.”

“You need to play sports to afford your first choice in colleges.”

“You need to go to college to get a good job or make it to the NFL.”

“You need to get a good job to afford to live as you dream of living.”

The responses I get make me cringe…

“Well, you make me play too many sports anyway.  I never get a break.”

“I’ll just skip college and get a job like fill-in-the-blank did.”

“I will live with it if I don’t make it into the NFL.”

“I’ll just get a regular job and work my way up to make a lot of money like fill-in-the-blank does.”

I swear, people – Someone snatched my sweet, loving child and replaced him with a 14-year-old teenager who doesn’t care about crap.  Eugene’s had the adult, dude-to-dude conversation with him.  His teachers have had the caring adult conversation with him.  I’ve had the loving mom conversation with him.  Heck – I’ve even had the coming to Jesus talk with him.

 

Nothing.  Works.

 

His teachers continue to tell me that he’s a great kid with a brilliant mind, but he just doesn’t turn in his homework.  They assure me that they’re going through this with most of their male students, and that it’s just a phase.  They promise me my kid is normal and is just being lazy.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a normal kid.  I want an exceptional kid.  An above-average kid.  A kid who gives a damn.  I know Eugene wants and expects the same.  We have gone above and beyond to ensure we’ve given this child everything he needs to be an exceptional, amazing young man.  Are we abnormal parents to hold our kids to high expectations?  I’m curious to know if we’re the crazy ones, maybe. 

 

I’ve seen a slight change in the “normal teenager’s” attitude the last couple weeks, but unfortunately, with report cards coming out next week, it’s a little too late for that at this juncture.  I guess we can only try to start fresh next semester and hope whoever stole my sweet kid will drop him back off at our front door. 

 

In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts.  On boys, on kids, on teenagers, on school, on your expectations, and on your experiences in parenting.  Please, please someone tell me we’re not alone in this invasion of the body snatchers.

“You know, surprisingly, they don’t sell a lot of brains in the local 24-hour grocery store around the corner from my house.” ~Rusty Fischer

While we were in Beaufort for Emma’s softball tournament this weekend, we had a lot of time to kill.  Killing time is not easy when you have four kids to entertain and a lack of a small fortune to spend.  Much of our days were filled with [read in your whiniest voice possible] –

“It’s too hoooot out.”

“I’m boooored.”

“There’s nothing to doooo.”

“This suuuucks.”

“I wanna’ go hoooome.”

“Can we pleeeease go do something fun?”

After a long, hard search on the Google, Eugene finally discovered some fun, cheap activities to do for the monsters kids that were fairly close to our hotel and the tournament location.

First stop on the list:  What’s Beneath the Surface: A Teen Zombie Program

Yep, that’s right.  Parents of the year, right here… We decided to take our kids (only one of whom is a teen) to learn how zombie makeup is applied in movies and on TV.  Wait, though.  That’s not all!  After they’re taught how to make a zombie, they’re made into zombies themselves!!!

So we get to the library and learn all about how to make the grossest, goriest cuts, bruises, and gashes.  Then comes the best part – the kids became actual, real zombies!  For real!

Gerald decided on a nice, deep, gross gash in his forearm.  The artist lady even peeled back the skin for extra gore!

 

Ronald went with a gory, swollen, bruised broken bone look in his forearm.  The bruising was a disgusting blend of just the right greens, yellows, and purples.

Jeremy chose a vulgar mix of busted eye and lip.  His eye had a deep gash, much in need of a few stitches, and purple bruising, while his nose dripped a deep red blood.

Emma also went with the busted mouth.  Her nose oozed blood, and her mouth had a foul color and mixture of bruising and blood and scabbing.

As you can see, they’re quite the walking dead!

After their zombie makeovers, we left the library in search of our next cheap adventure to kill time.  While we were standing in the library parking lot discussing our options, a very pregnant lady came running up to us in a panic.  Of course my first thought was that she was about to give birth right there in our parking space and needed our help.  Dr. Alicia at your service, ma’am.

But that wasn’t the problem.  Our kids were the problem.  Panicky pregnant lady was barely comprehensible as she blurted out, “OhmyGod. Aretheyokay? Areyouokay? Haveyoubeeninacaraccident?”  Huh?  I looked at her like she was speaking Japanese.  (And I don’t know Japanese, in case you were wondering.)  She must have seen the look of complete befuddlement on my face because she finally elaborated.  “Thekids! They’rebleeding! Aretheyokay? Wereyouinanaccident?!”

Oh, damn.  The kids.  I felt a slight twinge of guilt for making this poor, massively pregnant lady have a panic attack.  “Uh, um, no ma’am… The zombies are just fine. They weren’t in an accident. Their dad and I just took them to get teen zombie makeovers. They’re just zombies. That’s all…”  After I got the glare of death, she sucked in a deep breath, stuck her chest out, grabbed her kid’s hand, and she stomped away.  Oops.

The kids zombies all thought that was just the funniest thing to ever happen.  They giggled about it all the way to our next stop – the grocery store.  Believe it or not, we actually made it all the way through the grocery store with only a few stares and were on the way out before we were actually stopped again.

This time it was a cute little old lady who stopped us.  “Oh dear! Lawd, are y’all alright? Those poor babies – Have they been hurt?”  Here were go again…  “No ma’am, they haven’t been hurt, and they’re just fine.  They were turned into zombies at the library this afternoon.”  To my utter surprise, she responded with, “Oh, well isn’t that neat?! And it looks so real, too! Lawd, them babies is just as cute as can be. And I’m so glad that they haven’t been hurt.”

Again, our little zombies giggled all the way to the car and back to our hotel.  They didn’t mention dying of boredom again that whole day.  Maybe because they were already dead.  Hmm…

Mission accomplished.

“Slang is the suitcase of the damned, my dear. CHECK IT.” ~Heather Cocks

Okay, so I’m a little behind the times.  Every time I say something is cool or awesome or rad or even gnarly [lol], I get a major “you’re an idiot” eye roll from my completely gnarly [lol] teenager.  That, of course, would be Gerald, who is the epitome of cool (at least in his own head).  When we have conversations, I often feel like I’m speaking to an alien from another planet… one to which I’ve not been honored to visit yet.  In an effort to help all of my fellow “bofs” [noun: boring old farts] have ridiculous effective conversations with today’s teens, I’ve put together a mini cheat-sheet for quick reference.

Here’s your 2013 “Teen Slang for Dummies” guide:

Beast

Old fart definition:  noun – any nonhuman animal, especially a large, four-footed mammal
Hip teen definition:  adjective – very good; excellent; cool; awesome
Example:  Dude, your news kicks are beast!

Chill

Old fart definition:  adjective – moderately cold; tending to cause shivering
Hip teen definition:  adjective – great; awesome; cool; fine; okay; fun; low-key
Example:  Man, that penny board is so chill!

Derp

Old fart definition:  This word does not exist in our normal, old fart language.
Hip teen definition:  noun – dummy
Example:  Come on, stop being such a derp.

Dookie Fresh

Old fart definition:  Again, THANKFULLY, this word does not exist in our normal, old fart language.
Hip teen definition:  adjective – excellent; awesome; cool
Example:  Wow, those rims are dookie fresh!

Fetch

Old fart definition:  verb – to go and bring back; return with; get
Hip teen definition:  adjective – great; awesome; cool
Example:  That new song by Macklemore is so fetch!

Gnarly

Old fart definition:  adjective – another word for gnarled; slang for distasteful, offensive, or gross
Hip teen definition:  adjective – very good; excellent; cool  (yep… precisely the opposite of what it meant when we old folks were growing up)
Example:  That homerun was gnarly!

Hoss Boss  (Nope, not kidding…)

Old fart definition:  As you probably guessed, this word does not exist in our normal, old fart language.
Hip teen definition:  adjective – incredibly awesome; great
Example:  That kid is totally hoss boss!  He should hang with us!

Pure

Old fart definition:  adjective – clear; free from blemishes; free from foreign elements
Hip teen definition:  adjective – awesome; extremely excellent; great
Example:  Dude, that dunk was pure!

Ratchet

Old fart definition:  noun – a toothed bar with which a pawl engages
Hip teen definition:  adjective – loud; rude; obnoxious; severely ghetto
Example:  Man, that chick is mad ratchet.  I wish she would just shut up!

Ridiculous

Old fart definition:  adjective – absurd; preposterous; laughable
Hip teen definition:  adjective – extremely impressive; unbelievable; very good; excellent; cool; awesome
Example:  Dude, Clowney’s tackle on that kid was ridiculous!

Sick

Old fart definition:  adjective – affected with ill health or disease
Hip teen definition:  adjective – crazy; insane; great; cool; awesome
Example:  That skateboard trick was sick! 

Smoking

Old fart definition:  verb – to give off or emit smoke
Hip teen definition:  adjective – extremely attractive; hot
Example:  The new girl in my math class is smoking!

Sweet

Old fart definition:  adjective – having the taste or flavor characteristic of sugar or honey; not rancid
Hip teen definition:  adjective – used to express extreme satisfaction or approval; good; excellent; cool
Example:  No school tomorrow?  Sweet!

Whack

Old fart definition:  verb – to strike with a resounding blow
Hip teen definition:  adjective – bad; sucks, crazy; insane
Example:  Man, that’s whack that your mom grounded you.

Wicked

Old fart definition:  adjective – evil or morally bad in principle; mischievous
Hip teen definition:  adjective – awesome; cool; used to add emphasis
Example:  Holy crap, it’s wicked cold outside!

Okay… So now that you’re up-to-speed on today’s hippest language, I challenge you to go strike up a conversation with a teenager.  I know.  That’s ridiculous, isn’t it?  😉