I wasn’t sure what to expect, even though I used to be a teenage girlfriend. I think I just had my brain so laser-focused on raising three little boys that I didn’t consider what it would be like to raise three towering-over-me boys and their magically expanding universe of friends. I may have sort of forgotten that at some point, those friends would be girlfriends.
I really need a book on this, just so I don’t screw it up now that I’ve realized.
So. This is The First, and the gorgeous creature next to him is, of course, the girlfriend I forgot to figure out in advance. What’s weird is that while I’m not sure how to be the mom of a teenager with a girlfriend, she seems perfectly calm, rational, and — unlike me — she doesn’t seem to be casting about wildly in order to figure out what to do with herself. It may help that she has four older sisters.
Can I please get a retroactive older sister, here? It’s fairly urgent.
They have been together for a while now (6 months? a year? Shoot, I need to remember to ask), and I knew this but never said Oh, we need to have her over for… whatever it is that you have your son’s girlfriend over for. Dinner? How did I fail to do this For A Year? Augh.
Thankfully, the First figured that part out. He invited her to go to church with us, then to come home to watch a movie. When he asked me about it, I panicked.
“Do NOT make her watch one of your awful horror movies! ‘Saw 4′ is OUT.”
“Mom,” the First replied equably, “We’re not gonna watch Saw.”
“Okay,” I breathed in, and tried madly to figure out what the mom is supposed to say next. “Okay, and if you want to watch the movie with all of us we can all be down here in the den.”
I admit I’m an idiot.
And after I said it, I tried to fix it. “But of course if you want to watch it — just the two of you — up in your room, the rule is that the door stays open. And… and… don’t forget to let me take a picture when she comes over. I should have a picture.”
Ugh. I swear I’ll be smoother with the Ice, really I will. (Was the picture part too much?)
“No problem,” replied the First.
And there wasn’t. She came over. They watched a nice movie with the door open. Later he brought me the camera and patiently waited while I snapped a couple of photos.
And when I uploaded it to Facebook I even got a note from her. She likes it.
I’m doing fine, don’t you think?
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