You know how when you have a baby, you try to figure out his or her schedule: After breakfast he likes to play. After lunch she takes a 2-hour nap. And just when feel like you've got it, the baby changes the routine. Actually she naps after breakfast and plays after lunch. And his favorite food is now peaches.
Well folks, in case you didn't know . . . the same thing is true of teenagers. Mine, at least.
And let me tell you, trying to figure out what's coming up next, what they need, how they might react to something new--it is exhausting. It's like I'm up in the middle of the night every night, only it's not for bottles or diapering, it's for chasing people out of the kitchen and telling them to turn off their lights. It's worrying and wondering about the big things that seem to embody progression and regression on a comically broad-tipping scale.
But one pattern I can tell you is that after a vacation things are always, always hard.
I don't know if it's that holding it together was hard and now they fall apart, or if there's the disappointment of having to return to normal life, or it just feels good to run around and cause mayhem and misery. I really don't know but I sure am glad for a few hours to myself today because I need it.
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