Teenager In Training*****

When I was an emotionally-fraught, brainless, teeny-bopper myself, I cherished sleep. I stood at the altar of zzz's and said alleluias.

I did what every teenager around me did: stayed up until the wee hours of the morning watching "Friday Night Videos", drinking Diet Coke or TAB, and then sleeping until noon on Saturday. UNLESS, and only unless, I had an early shift at the Burger King. In which case, I rolled out of bed at the unseemly hour of 8am.

Nickels, on the other hand, isn't quite a teenager and isn't gainfully employed. He went to bed at 9:30pm last night.

He has been grounded for the weekend, banished from the 5th grade Father/Son camp out, can't play with brothers and/or friends, must write two papers as penance for an act that we consider a deal-breaker, and generally is bored out of his gourd because he can't have any contact with screens.**

So, you understand that going to bed was just an act of desperation to keep Nickels from going incredibly crazy under the pressure of being "Bored. I'm so bored."***

This morning, the rest of the house, meaning everyone but Mike and Nickels,**** was up at 7am. Ready to eat. Ready to enjoy the sunshine and cooler temps outside. Ready to tackle the day by its ankles.

Nickels? He was in bed, covered little-toe-to-tip-of-his-head by his comforter, in a big heap with the fan going on HIGH, with temperatures rivaling a meat locker.

The dogs, mushed together in their cage, looked at me like "RESCUE US! WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH FUR TO SURVIVE THESE IDITAROD-TYPE CONDITIONS!"

7:30am passed. 8am came and went. 8:15 was looming on the horizon. So, I entered the cold tundra, exposed Nickel's ear, and whispered "Your eggs and sausage are hot right now; come eat."

I think bodies in morgues respond more affirmatively.

Finally, 8:30 arrived, and the dead walked. To the kitchen. And stood in front of his breakfast. And announced "I'm too tired to eat." In response, I said "Well, then. Go back to bed."

Since his head had sunk almost to the level of his plate, he had to straighten up to say "That sounds like a good idea to me." And he turned around, went directly back to bed, didn't collect $200, and took about 20 more minutes of snooze time away from Mother Sun.

OH.MY.GOSH. I AM SO RAISING A ZOMBIE. WHO SOMEHOW HAS BLOOD COURSING THROUGH HIS VEINS. BUT, OBVIOUSLY, NOT IN QUANTITIES SUFFICIENT TO KEEP HIS HEAD FROM ALMOST FALLING INTO HIS JIMMY DEAN GOODNESS."

AND. OH.MY.GOSH.PART.DEUX. For the first time in recent memory, my son took my advice! MIRACLE.

I think this is a vision of things to come. Late mornings, difficulty dragging Nickels out of bed for even the most exciting of events, half-open eyes at 11am.

And I consciously, knowingly, happily went into this parenting thing? I intended to get pregnant, realizing I would eventually have hormone-laden, zitty, emotionally-screwed teenagers. Seriously?

Somewhere, in the distance, I hear The Universe replying "SUCKER!"


*AH, yes. My first job besides babysitting. Ran the drive-thru most weekends. That experienced proved to me that it is a GREAT idea to further your education if you intend to eat something besides ramen noodles in your twenties.

**Which means no TV, DS, video games, IPOD, or looking in a mirror for more than a milli-second.

***That was about 30 minutes after arriving home from school on Friday, the beginning of the weekend of Hell--for me and Mike.

****Those two are peas-in-a-pod. The rest of us are up, happy-snappy, when the rooster crows and the coffee is brewed. Those two? Just hitting REM mode.

*****The fact that the acronym here is TIT is not lost on me.