Life of Wry

Peter’s room.

I know I’ve written about this before. But I guess that’s life with a teenager.

Really, you just can’t appreciate the mess in this picture, as so much of it is off camera.  But trust me, it’s a disaster.  And much of it is manmade, as in, “I’m so mad at you, Mom, I’m going to drive you batshit crazy by throwing this exercise ball against the wall 24,837 times and if it knocks over stuff on the shelves, well that’s just too damn bad, because I’m bored and you shouldn’t have taken away my media for the weekend, the LONG THREE DAY weekend, and I know how you hate it when my room’s all messy and stuff, so I’m going to throw some books around and empty my backpack and upend my laundry basket and scatter some money and unmake my bed and whatever else I can think of to make you regret ever following through with these so-called consequences.”   

Not regretting it one bit, my dear dramatic son.

I am glad it was only a moratorium on media and not a grounding.  Thanking goodness for that, because after a difficult night that turned into a tedious morning, he’s off with friends, a sleepover to boot, and we have some peace and quiet around here.  Good lord.

After a long evening of calm and reasoned responses to why it was to be a media-free weekend, my patience had run dry by this morning.  Last night it was a whole lot of “I understand it’s hard. I can see you’re very disappointed. I appreciate that you tried. I’m sorry you didn’t bring it home, too.”

This morning it was more like, “Do you realize there are children all over the world who have no food, no home, and have to work instead of go to school? They don’t have what you have, and they certainly aren’t crying over losing media for the weekend! You screwed up, now figure out how you’re not going to do it again! Man-up and make something out of this weekend instead of wasting all your energy complaining! Maturity is learning how to deal with disappointment. I’m done listening to you whine.”

You know, standbys like that. And yes, I evoked Africa.

Now I’m just looking forward to a grown up night that starts in a bar over a large glass of wine.