Category Archives: The Teenager

Sep 07 2013
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The Teenager

Saved By The Bell

back to schoolThis has been a sad, sad week. The Teenager went back to school on Wednesday and I’m still wiping away the tears, getting used to rattling around an empty house with only Jeremy Kyle for company.

There is so much I will miss:

  • The feeling of lightness in my wallet. It will take a bit of adjusting to not having to dig deep every single day. Money for the cinema and lunch in town with friends for him, beans on toast and ‘Cash In The Attic’ with the cat for me.
  • Telling the Teenager for the umpteenth time, ‘In my day, we….(insert one of the following – ‘didn’t have the internet’, ‘made our own fun out of tin cans and bits of string’, ‘walked everywhere’).
  • The loud music blasting from his bedroom when I’m trying to have a quick shut-eye. Everything from Nirvana to the Beach Boys to new stuff I’m far too old to know the names of. He’s nothing if not eclectic.
  • The drama involved in buying a new school uniform. Will particularly miss the slammed bedroom doors, followed by shouts of ‘s’not fair, hate school, stoopid Harry Potter blazer.’
  • Ditto School Shoe Shopping (SSS). I’m sure the lovely lady who helped us really didn’t mind bringing out so many boxes of shoes to a Kevin The Teenager lookalike. She did look awfully happy/relieved when we left though.
  • The friends who pop over to see The Teenager for an hour and end up staying all day. Such dear, funny little people. Not at all loud.
  • The chainsaw snores from The Teenager’s bedroom as he has yet another lie-in.

So, forgive me if I’m a touch emotional. I have dug out all the old photographs of his first day at school, stretching back years. They range from the impossibly cute, smiley 4 year old to the one last year, where I had to bribe him with an extra quid for lunch. He’s slouched, unsmiling, barely looking at the camera. Sigh. This year, in his smart new blazer, his photo was more like a mugshot for junior Crimewatch.

Anyway, I have to pull myself together and not feel too despondent. As The Teenager couldn’t wait to tell me yesterday, it’s only six weeks to half-term. Like, yay.

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Jul 14 2013
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The Teenager

Guilty As Charged

gulty as chargedSomething lovely happened yesterday that also broke my heart into tiny pieces.

The Teenager had arranged to go out biking with his friends in the morning. That was great – he’s an outdoorsy kid and I’d much rather he was out than stuck in his bedroom in front of the computer screen. He phoned me early afternoon to tell me excitedly he’d been invited to the beach by some of his friends and their parents.

When I got home, he was in the middle of packing his swimming costume, a towel and some money, bouncing around, beaming from ear to ear. I waved him off, sat at the kitchen table and cried.

Why? MS. Extreme heat intolerance means I will never be able to take him to the beach in the summer. I can’t take him anywhere in this weather. Add constant fatigue on top and I’m a pretty useless parent now. I’m only glad we did a lot together when he was younger, before MS reared it’s ugly head.

I’m trying to stay positive. The flipside to my new working hours is that I am always at home after school. He might only want to say a few words/grunts before raiding the fridge, but I listen. I know all the dramas going on at school, I know what homework he needs to hand in and he knows I’m always there for him.

Finding a new way of parenting with MS has been one of the hardest challenges and one we are still working out together. Gone are the days we jumped in the car on a whim and headed off. Everything is meticulously planned now, with one eye on the weather forecast and energy levels.

Years ago I was told that when you give birth to a child, you also give birth to a lifetime of guilt. What you feed your child, which toys you buy, which school you send them to – all are guilt-laden. Throw in a hefty dose of MS and the guilt skyrockets. I’m failing as an active parent. I can only hope that when he looks back as an adult, my son will not remember the times I didn’t take him to the beach, but will instead feel secure in the knowledge that he was always, always the centre of my world.

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Jul 06 2013
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The Teenager

Blazing Rows…

prefectOur tranquil little cottage has become a battleground, with neither me nor The Teenager willing to give way. There have been tears, sulks and door slamming and I’ve apologised to the neighbours who rolled their eyes and said, ‘Teenagers, eh?’ in sympathetic tones.

He’s even attempted a hunger strike but lasted only until I stocked the fridge with his favourite Müller yoghurts and waved a pizza under his nose.

The cause of all this conflict? His school is adopting a new uniform policy as of September. From the age of four, The Teenager has gone to school in some variation of a polo top and school jumper. Now his high school want to have a smarter uniform so the kids no longer look like over-grown infants and I’m all for it. We got the final uniform list a couple of days ago and he remains distinctly unimpressed.

‘Oh, lovely, you have to wear a blazer!’

‘Yeah, with, like, gold piping. I’m not a girl. I’m not wearing it. They can’t make me. It’s like, rank.’

‘But they wear them in Waterloo Road. Very smart.’

‘Yeah, whatever. Still not wearing it. It’s against my yooman rights’

‘Well, look, you get a nice tie as well! Very grown up. Why’s it a clip on one though? What’s wrong with a proper one?’

‘Like, duh, it’s so we don’t strangle each other. Elf ‘n’ safety, innit?’

And so we go round in circles. He’s trying to organise a boycott for September, but few of his friends are brave/daft enough to join him. The uniform is due to land in the shops within the next couple of weeks and he’s coming with me whether he likes it or not. This may involve an after-school swoop, where I thrust a packet of crisps into his hand, bundle him into the car and lock the doors from the inside.

I have tried to reason with him, but as soon as I started a conversation with the words, ‘when I was your age….’ he huffed and puffed, stomped upstairs and blasted his music out (Oasis, full volume, same two songs in an endless loop).

I will win this argument but the next battle will be trying to take his photograph in his brand new shiny uniform on the first day of Year 10, minus the rude gestures. And there was me thinking the toddler years were the worst.

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Apr 12 2013
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The Teenager

Basket Case

never take a teenager shoppingI’m not a fan of supermarket shopping and I should have been suspicious when The Teenager jumped at the chance to accompany me the other day.

I haven’t given up online shopping, but my mum mentioned she had seen some artificial grass in a supermarket nearby and it was selling out fast.

It was one of those cut-price supermarkets – no frills, no helpful staff, prison-style strip lighting and pushy customers shoving their trolleys into any legs that had the audacity to get in their way of grabbing the last bottle of Lambrusco or tin of discounted baked beans.

‘Muuuuuuuuuuuuum, can I have a bag of donuts?’

‘No.’

‘Two donuts?’

‘No.’

One?’ (sad face)

‘Just let me find the blinking grass and we’re out of here. What? Oh, alright then. ONE.’

I found the grass and tried to juggle four rolls of the stuff in my arms when The Teenager came back with a basket, one donut lying forlornly in the middle.

‘Why do you need a basket for your donut?’

‘Er. Um. Pepsi’s cheap, only 25 pence a can and I never have pop and everyone else in school has pop in the house and it’s not fair that everyone else in school gets to have pop and I don’t and I really think it’s so cheap that it would be really nice if for once I could have some pop in the house so I’m just like all my friends and won’t feel so different from everyone else. See?’

‘Oh really?’

‘Yeah. Pleeeeeeaaaaaassssssse? Just say ‘stop’ at the number of cans I can have? Tennineeightsevensixfivefourthree…’

‘THREE. You can have three. One a day for the next three days as a treat. Then it’s checkout.’

We queue up, offload the grass, Pepsi and solitary donut.

‘Muuuuuuuum’.

‘No.’

‘You don’t even know what I was going to say.’

‘Yes. I. Do.’

‘Awwwwww. Can I just get one tiny packet of chewing gum? Everyone else in school gets to have chewing gum and….’

‘STOP. Don’t go any further. I know exactly what you’re going to say. I’m your mum. I’m a mind-reader.’

‘Meanie.’

‘Right, put the donut and the Pepsi back then.’

And so on and so on. And that is yet another good reason for never, ever going supermarket shopping…

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Apr 06 2013
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The Teenager

Single Parent, Multiple Sclerosis

Our little family has adjusted fairly well to life with multiple sclerosis, but now and again it throws up some major hurdles.

Even though my ex-husband and I are happily divorced and are bringing up The Teenager as well as we can despite the 140 mile distance between us, there are definitely times when it would be handy to have a partner around, or at least in the same city.

I’m booked in to hospital for my second round of Alemtuzumab treatment during the summer school holidays and it’s coming round far too quickly. The Teenager will be at his dad’s for a week as usual and with the way the dates have worked out this year, I will have just one full day to recover at home after three days in hospital before The Teenager is home again. I am panicking. Slightly.

Last year, the Alemtuzumab left me exhausted, weak and under the weather and I had several weeks sick leave from work but I also had three clear days on my own at home to start to recover.

I’m not so much worried about me, but about how The Teenager will feel seeing me lying on the sofa even more than usual. Is there anything more depressing than an ill parent? I tried to have a chat with him about it the other day and he’s promised me that if I buy him enough pizza, he’ll be fine, so here’s my plan to get through the first week or so:

  • Pizza
  • Accept all offers of help
  • When he’s out with friends, have a sleep, so I’m fully(ish) awake when he’s back
  • Encourage/bribe The Teenager to have friends for sleepovers
  • Stock the fridge with lots of good-quality ready-meals
  • Ignore the dust
  • Keep explaining that the treatment will ultimately make me much better in the long-term
  • Pizza

My friend’s daughter has offered to cat-and-house-sit again, so that’s one less thing to worry about. I’ll also organise a huge grocery delivery just before I go to hospital. I know what to expect this time round, so hopefully I’ll be better prepared than last year.

I was feeling very chuffed with my list and plans, then I checked my diary again. Yup, I’ll be turning 40 less than three weeks after the treatment. Now I really am panicking…

(no small violins were harmed during writing this blog post)

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