Teenagers | Very Berry Extra Ordinary

Only dairy farmers or bakers need to apply!

The successful candidate must be able to supply an endless amount of dairy products – preferable milk – and baked goods; staked high to satisfy the ongoing hunger of four teenage boys.

I honestly thought buying nappies, formula milk or baby food in jars was bad enough. Years later comes the rude awakening: Our children changed from the cute, chubby, helpless little creatures into independent, strong willed, still cute (but different cute) young men, with a huge appetite!

Our new house came with one fridge and skinny freezer only. The boys empty them at a faster rate than I can restock them!

These days you can find me either on the way to the grocery store, in the grocery store or on my way home. Once at home I get ready to bake muffins, cookies, brownies or pancakes. I even took up yoghurt making.

Joey, our Korean exchange student, can eat for three! Furthermore, he literally drinks our ketchup bottles empty; he fears Heinz will stop producing them shortly. At first I thought he doesn’t like my cooking because he puts the sauce on everything. But even I have to admit, my cooking isn’t that bad either; Joey simply loves the taste of ketchup.

The two most common questions I have to answer on a regular basis are: “When are we eating dinner?” and “What are we eating later on?” Of course, there is nothing wrong with being asked these questions, it’s just very frustrating to answer them right after the boys wolved down their afternoon meal of French toast or toasties (melted cheese).

If Dominic agrees to change our marital status from ‘couple’ to ‘quadruple’, I will search for a legitimate religious order which allows women to have three men. If the google search will be unsuccessful I need to settle this matter once and for all: I am sure there will be another mid-term sale coming up soon and I will get myself a bread maker, a waffle iron, an ice-cream maker, a second fridge and freezer, big sacks of flour and a cow for the backyard.

Right now a song pops into my head. The one where Marilyn Monroe sings about “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”. Easy for her to sing, she never had children….

It is official: Our teenage son has a girl-friend! After weeks of speculation, casual remarks about her, several visits to her house and late night text-messaging I finally – officially – met Mystery Girl!

Good Lord, our son has taste! (He probably got that from his father…) She is gorgeous! Everything about her is long: her overall size, her hair and her legs! If this isn’t enough, she seems to be very nice, polite, fun, well brought up and well mannered! It seems to be too good to be true, but pretty and nice can go hand in hand together.

Here I am, home alone with our teenage son and his girl-friend. They went up to his room – and from then onwards, silence! What are they doing? Actually, I leave this to your imagination and mine! I did what (hopefully) every mother would have done: I avoided the upstairs – in fear of being accused to spy on them! Instead of sorting through our laundry upstairs I decided to spent a delightful afternoon on YouTube, searching for the songs which would bring back vivid memories of my first kiss, slow dance and the other innocent, but still slightly naughty things I did when I was a teenager!

What was I worried about? A stolen kiss? Or that little bit more? I don’t really know! Our teenager is fully aware of the story with the bee and the flower (i.e. reproduction). He spent his first ten years in the Dutch school system. A system were they don’t shy away from graphic illustrations when it comes to sex education and STD. This country has the lowest pregnancy rate among teenagers in all of Europe! Need I say more? Honestly, I am pretty sure our son knows more about any of the dating do and don’ts than I ever knew. So if it’s not the S.. I was worried about what was it?

From now on I am the mother of a teenager who has a girl-friend! This is a new step into unknown territory for me! Am I the only one or do you agree when I say, as a parent you have constantly new territories to conquer? On the other hand, this new job-description is another opportunity to shine as an “extra-ordinary” mother (e.g. don’t spy on them).

Finally, after I relived all my first time adventures, the laundry couldn’t wait any longer. Hesitantly I went upstairs only to realize the couple wasn’t around after all! At that moment I figured I had to avoid our den. But, I am only human and a woman and my curiosity got the better of me. I went downstairs.

I was prepared for hot flushes and embarrassed looks! But all I could hear was rapid gun fire (good decoy) and laughter. Here they are, in front of our TV screen: The gorgeous girl-friend was kicking my son’s ass on the Xbox!

So much for my vivid imagination! When I was a teenager we didn’t have electronic devices! We had to entertain ourselves with different objects of desire…