Category Archives: The Teenager

Aug 20 2015
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The Teenager

Now I Know My A, B, C’s

examsExam results day for The Teenager.

Bitten nails, late-night angsty-chats with friends, contemplating the future.

And that’s just me.

These last couple of months have been an exercise in diplomacy, negotiation and extreme patience:

 

‘I’ve failed. I know it. I just know it. I have. So there.’

‘You haven’t.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Well, um. Ah. Good point. You tried really hard? And, you went through a lot of post-it notes?’

‘S’not fair. I bet the exam markers hate me. Maybe they couldn’t read my writing.’

‘I’m sure they’ve seen it all, don’t worry.’

‘Mum. You’re, like, so not helping. Please, leave me to my despair and close the door behind you, ta.’

This morning, finally, we got here. The Teenager plonked himself with a grunt onto the sofa and watched beaming kids opening their results live on telly. Probably not his best idea ever.

I went to work (after offering to take the day off and do something nice, like feed the ducks), put my phone on loud and waited. And waited. Phone rings.

‘Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum.’ (heavy panting down the phone)

‘Hello dear!’

‘Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum! I’m in!!’

‘Wonderful! In what, dear? In school? To get the results?’ (non-committal, just in case)

‘D’ur!! Like, I diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid it! I passed, gonna do my A levels, do my A levels, yay, like A levels.’

Phew.

I collapsed in a crumpled heap outside work.

‘Muuuuuum, just one problem.’

Gah.

‘You know how I have to register for the next two years? For the A levels? Well, like, I threw out my results from last year. By mistake.’

Oh.

Long story short, I left work, took him to school and he got a print-out. Sorted.

I dropped him off at a friend’s house before heading back to work.

I was a wreck. He’s out celebrating.

It’s all good. We got there in the end.

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Jul 01 2015
4 Comments
The Teenager

Don’t Need No Edukashun

ChrisIt’s all over.

The tears, the angst, the arguments.

Day-glo highlighter pens were flung across the room, doors were slammed and the fridge was stripped bare on a daily basis, until even the rubbery carrots and three-day-opened tub of houmous was wolfed down.

Yup, The Teenager’s exam season is finally over and it couldn’t come soon enough.

I tried my best to be understanding and supportive. I made endless rounds of toast and was sympathetic when he regularly drained my printer of ink as yet another past paper trundled through and was stapled, completed and torn up before he stomped upstairs, scattering the pieces.

I gently engaged him in conversation only to be rebuffed with, ‘gah, you wouldn’t understand, you’re like, old yeah? and didn’t even have computers Back Then. Or the internet. Or mobiles. Or Facebook. Or Snapchat. I mean, really, what did you, like,  do all day?’

I regularly received text updates after his exams, ranging from ‘smashed it, ohhhhh yessss!!!!!!!!’ to ‘leavin school, not doin A levels’. Or, ‘Dominos? Pleeeeeeaaaaaasssssseeeee?’

He came home after a rather hard maths exam and told me he had decided to go into gainful employment after his exams rather than continuing his education. I reasonably told him I’d take him to Burger King on his results day to sign him up. Along with all the University graduates who can’t find a job. ‘But I love Burger King. I can tell them that in the interview?’

Anyway, there’s not much we can do until his results come through on 20th August. In a cruel twist of fate, that’s the day before his 16th birthday.

The Prom Suit Saga filled much of our time, mostly mine. Due to his stature, we sourced the Gentlemen’s Outfitters that kits out the Welsh rugby team. Only problem was, it was embedded deep in the valleys, so deep that even my sat-nav queried me at one point with, ‘turn around when possible, you numpty, you, there’s nothing here.’

On The Prom Evening, suited and booted, he rushed downstairs. ‘PROBLEM’, he yelled, ‘there’s stupid, idiot lines in my trousers, where’s the iron?’ He was frantic and with only five minutes to go before he was to be picked up for the prom, so was I.

‘Huh?’

‘Lines? Lines? Look‘.

He pointed and flapped at the beautifully pressed-in creases in his dinner suit trousers.

‘That’s what they’re supposed to look like’.

‘Eh?’

‘Yes, my little cherub. It’s a prom suit, a dinner suit, now let me get a photo of you’.

‘Dinner?’

*strop, thump, meh*

He left, his tie skew-whiff (‘s’right’), photo taken for posterity (‘muuuuuuuuuum, really?’) and I slumped on the sofa.

We got there. In the end.

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Feb 08 2015
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The Teenager

Teenagers. ‘Nuff Said.

manhatttanThe Teenager is off to New York in 9 days for a school trip, so he needs warm clothes.

Sounds easy, but this is the same Teenager who refuses to wear jumpers (too naff), hats (yeah, right) or gloves (I’m not, like, a kid).

So our weekend shopping trip to town was meticulously planned and of course fell spectacularly apart.

‘It’s cold in New York, you need warm clothes.’

‘Is it colder than Glasgow?’

‘Yup.’

‘S’ok. T-shirts will be fine.’

‘Get dressed, we’re leaving in five minutes.’

Thump, thump, strop around upstairs, sound of clothes being flung around the room.

‘Right, I’m, like, ready.’

I look round. ‘Get back upstairs this instant and take those shorts off. It’s minus 2 outside.’

Grunts, strops, thumping back upstairs. Comes slouching back down in trousers (and a t-shirt) and magnanimously agrees to get in the car.

Town. Seventy shops later, my nerves are frayed and I’m on the verge of yelling in public. Shop seventy-one and I yelled. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the zip. The only thing that’s wrong is that you’re stropping and trying to do it up with one hand.’ A small crowd gathered, pretending to look at the Bermuda shorts nearby, earwigging.

‘Ok. Okkkkaaaaaay, I’ll take it.’

So we got the jacket. Eventually. Only two jumpers to go. Hours later, I took them up to the desk, where a chirpy young man bagged them up.

‘And how are you enjoying this lovely day, madam?’

‘Oh, wonderful, thank you. I adore shopping with my sullen, sulky son. In fact, I wish I did it more often.’

He looked scared and glanced surreptitiously under the counter where there was no doubt a panic button.

On the way back to the car, I had to stop to get some stuff in for dinner and made the mistake of asking The Teenager what he fancied.

‘Pizza.’

‘No.’

‘Small one?’

‘No.’

‘Fine. I’m going to wait in the car. Keys?’

I waved him off and took  my time schlepping around the Tesco Metro, admiring the plastic tubs of ready-peeled kiwi fruit and chopped coconut. My phone went.

‘Can’t open the boot.’

‘Just press the button on the key fob.’

‘Can’t. It’s disappeared.’

‘What, the car or the key?’

‘The button to open the boot.’

I ended the call.

He’s having salmon for dinner. With broccoli.

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Jan 31 2015
4 Comments
The Teenager

Peace. At Last.

peaceWell, the trauma of last week is fading.

One email sent to school, one passport sent in for half-term trip, one mea culpa parent. Sorted.

Me and The Teenager had A Talk. I explained (again) that my brain has taken early retirement and sometimes doesn’t want to play ball, but he’s also got a responsibility to be on top of school stuff too, i.e. don’t remind me five minutes before a meeting. I guess he’s just used to me remembering everything and it was a shock to his system. Bless him.

Anyway, he has now gone off for the weekend on a mentoring break in West Wales with the school, to support him through his exams.

We packed his bag last night, he charged up his phone (‘I am nuffink without it’), and laid out his clothes ready for his early start – 6 am this morning, lol.

I don’t have a megaphone, so I just yelled in his ear at the set time. He grunted, turned over and went back to sleep. Repeated five minutes later and he lumbered to the bathroom, complaining loudly and slamming the door.

So far, so good. Drove him to drop-off at appointed early hour (don’t get out the car with me, s’embarrassing and do not hug me’), then heard nothing by text. No news is good news?

A text a couple of hours later, ‘food is grim here’.

Then another, ‘beds are too small’.

And another, ‘wanna come home’.

In the meantime, I have been catching up with the laundry, catching up with food shopping and most importantly, getting out into the real world and catching up with a good friend over coffee, where I boasted, ‘oh, he’s fine, I haven’t heard anything’.

So now I am at home, pacing, waiting for a phone call from one of the teachers. Something along the lines of, ‘please drive fifty miles to West Wales and pick up your son. Now‘.

Probably just as well I had planned nothing more exciting this evening than highlighting programmes I want to watch in next week’s Radio Times. And sorting through The Teenager’s growing collection of odd socks.

Life goes on. I now have even more post-it notes cluttering my table, reminding me of every single tiny thing, just in case I forget again:

  • Petrol – buy some.
  • Saturday Guardian newspaper – buy and read the Blind Date article.
  • Call tax office – next week.
  • Teenager goes to New York for school trip in two weeks – check weather forecast.
  • Take library books back – overdue?

Another text from The Teenager, ‘I feel sick’.

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Dec 17 2014
6 Comments
The Teenager

Say Cheese, Please?

say cheeseYou’d think, wouldn’t you, that what with teenagers uploading photos of everything they do, it would be fairly simple to ask my own Teenager to have his photo taken?

Just one teeny problem with this; the photo would be with me.

His Mother.

Apparently, this is so far beyond the realms of excruciatingly embarrassing as to be virtually unimaginable.

I brought up the subject gently, i.e. I stood guard by the fridge as he crashed through the door after school, shedding bag, blazer and tie in a path of devastation towards the kitchen.

‘Erm, you know how I’m turning the blog into a book?’

‘Huh’? Muuuuuuuuum, lemme open the fridge. Starvin’.

‘Well, you’re in the blog quite a lot and I think it would be lovely if we had a photo of both of us? Oi, one bagel, not three.’

He glanced up from the toaster with a look of absolute horror on his face. I guessed this wasn’t going to plan.

‘I’ve got a few ideas….’

‘No way. Noooooooo way. Where’s the butter?’

‘Here. Go on (wheedling voice), I’m dedicating the book to you. Got a few ideas. And I don’t even mind if you pull a silly face behind my back, like you normally do?’

‘Lame. Way lame.’

‘Ok, how about we stand back to back?’

‘Lame -er.’

I dropped it. Christmas is just round the corner, maybe we could get someone to take a sneaky photo or ten?

This could quite possibly be the biggest challenge of the entire book project. Not the editing down from several hundred pages of blog posts. Not choosing which font to use or writing an introduction. Or writing a blurb about me (eek) – first or third person?

No, it will be coercing The Teenager into a photograph in less than three takes.

And there was me thinking I could pose with a book, pen (which is strange as I use a computer to write the blog posts, natch) and a slightly melancholy, whimsical look on my face. Perhaps at an angle, with arty shadows. I could even learn how to wear a beret with sophistication and elegance.

Maybe we could have separate photos?

Or maybe I should just hire a cartoonist to sketch us. Could be simpler?

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